Venus Williams may be the face of a campaign to promote women’s equality in sport, but she says her trip to the conservative Muslim sheikdom of Qatar this week is all about winning matches.
“I think us players are really focused on the tennis more than anything else,” said Williams, who is in the Middle East for the WTA Tour’s season-ending event, the Sony Ericsson Championships. “I don’t think anyone else is too focused on any other outside issue. We’ve been hosted very well, and that’s pretty much it.”
Two years ago, Williams volunteered to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment as part of a program fashioned by the WTA Tour and UNESCO.
Women have fewer opportunities than men in sports and other fields in Qatar, which sent an all-male team to the Beijing Olympics this year. Saudi Arabia did the same.
Williams said on Monday that the top eight women had not arrived in Qatar primarily to change perceptions about women.
“I think every country has their way of doing things. I don’t think it’s really our job to come here and tell everyone how to do things and to change mindsets,” she said.
“We are here to play great tennis and to be a good role model and as women to be entertainment. Anything else might be a little bit beyond our reach and influence,” Williams said.
The younger Williams sister, Serena, is also a contender in Qatar. She said she had not met many women since her arrival.
“I can’t sit here and comment on exactly the hardships of the female that happens in Qatar. I’ve heard some things I should say, rather, of females that happens in the Middle East,” Serena said.
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
If all goes well when the biggest marathon field ever gathered in Australia races 42km through the streets of Sydney on Sunday, World Marathon Majors (WMM) will soon add a seventh race to the elite series. The Sydney Marathon is to become the first race since Tokyo in 2013 to join long-established majors in New York, London, Boston, Berlin and Chicago if it passes the WMM assessment criteria for the second straight year. “We’re really excited for Sunday to arrive,” race director Wayne Larden told a news conference in Sydney yesterday. “We’re prepared, we’re ready. All of our plans look good on
The lights dimmed and the crowd hushed as Karoline Kristensen entered for her performance. However, this was no ordinary Dutch theater: The temperature was 80°C and the audience naked apart from a towel. Dressed in a swimsuit and to the tune of emotional music, the 21-year-old Kristensen started her routine, performed inside a large sauna, with a bed of hot rocks in the middle. For a week this month, a group of wellness practitioners, called “sauna masters,” are gathering at a picturesque health resort in the Netherlands to compete in this year’s Aufguss world sauna championships. The practice takes its name from a
When details from a scientific experiment that could have helped clear Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva landed at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the leader of the organization’s reaction was unequivocal: “We have to stop that urgently,” he wrote. No mention of the test ever became public and Valieva’s defense at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) went on without it. What effect the information could have had on Valieva’s case is unclear, but without it, the skater, then 15 years old, was eventually disqualified from the 2022 Winter Olympics after testing positive for a banned heart medication that would later
RSS