I have to say I've grown tired of the relentless pursuit by women to find what they quite hilariously term 'equality'. The latest part of this perpetual bugbear to raise it's mal-formed digits is the battle for equal prize money between male and female tennis players. Women, or so they argue, are being branded 'inferior' by Wimbledon chiefs who insist on keeping the top prize money higher for men than for women.

What these lobbyists are saying is that the women on the courts are doing the same thing, but being rewarded less for it. They also argue that pretty much every other major tournament already has equal pay.

Let's break this down.

Firstly, women have already refused to increase the number of sets they play from best of 3 to best 5 (as the men already do), which raises the immediate point of if the men are working longer on the pitch to achieve their results, should they not be rewarded proportionately? It certainly seems unfair that men should be made to toil for what could be several hours per match more to attain the same prize money as the women. Secondly, men's tennis is notoriously more competitive. Look at the wimbledon results so far. Many men's matches have stretched into four hours of play, while a number of women's seeds breezed through their brief matches in less than one hour (one taking on 33 minutes). Partly, this is obviously due to the men having to play more sets, but there is also the factor of the few top ladies being so distant to the rest of the pack that they just destroy the opposition in the early rounds.

Thirdly, and in my not so humble opinion most significantly, men's tennis is more entertaining. It's played at a significantly higher pace, and with much more power (take the high speed serves of most top men for example). Women's tennis by comparison, while admittedly faster than I could hope to play the game myself, is played almost at snail's pace, and any attempt to put power behind a shot is accompanied by grunts with loud enough to drown out small aircraft taking off. While it's admirable that these women are really trying, the noise is just unpleasant, and the resulting hits still just don't compare with the big boys.

Because men's tennis is more entertaining, I would imagine it also relates to the majority of any TV revenue broadcasters have to shell out in order to secure the rights to show the games. Purely speculation, but I would be absolutely stunned if this weren't the case.

I'm probably in danger of moving towards a semi-coherent rant already, so I'll sum up everything so far. Men play faster, harder and more competitive tennis for up to 67% more sets, and are the main attraction of the game, yet women believe that they should be paid equally. Perhaps I'm being a little misogynistic here, but that doesn't really seem fair. Unless these women are going to put forward arguments such as the probability that the majority of men watching women's tennis are simply oggling the skimpy outfits, logically leading that their game provides multiple entertainment forms, and maybe even propose to take such garb to a new level of skin-revealing/clinging eye candy (although in the case of some lady tennis players, I would plead strenuously that, for the sake of humanity, they do no such thing - not mentioning any names, Williams twins), then I really don't quite understand what their case is.

The whole equal pay debate is a load of nonsense anyway. Sure, intellectually, we're all on the same level. I've no problem admitting that I know plenty of women who can match and surpass me for smarts, wits and spongey knowledge hoarding, but can we please stop pretending that women are physically the same as men? Athletes should be paid on entertainment value, and I'm sorry but, skimpy outfits and the occaisional Russian teenager aside (and I'm getting too old to even look at those without a guilty conscience anyway), the women's game just is not as entertaining.

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