Boycott by women is still a possibility

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This is a digitised version of an article from The Cayman Compass's print archive. Occasionally, the digitisation process introduces transcription errors, or other problems.

See the article in its original context from November 1976.

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The American-based Women's Tennis Association is, following talks with the Wimbledon management committee, still adhering to its threat to boycott the meeting in 1977 if equality of prize money with the men is not granted. The Wimbledon chairman, Air Chief Marshal Sir Brian Burnett, and Jerry Diamond, the executive director of W.T.A. had discussions but came to no agreement.

To what degree there is a real danger of the women's boycott being carried out in Wimbledon's centenary year must be assessed in the light of facts. An important one is that the women's game is now having record sums of prize money channelled into it by the sponsorship of an international series on grand prix lines by Colgate-Palmolive.

The possibility of the women being able to promote a rival tournament in America to clash with Wimbledon, which is what they have threatened, is remote.

Colgate-Palmolive are in any case hardly likely to welcome a prestige event such as Wimbledon not being able to participate tothe full in its international sponsorship. It could be that the Wimbledon authorities might be willing to meet the women's claims halfway. It would not be surprising if the 80 per cent proportion which women now get from the quarter-final stage onwards were lifted to 90 per cent.

This would mean increasing the first prize for the women's singles from 10,000 pounds to 11,250 pounds. The men's singles prize for the winner is 12,500 pounds. The total prize money at Wimbledon in 1976 was 157,840 pounds.