Diana Nyad Instagram – Years ago, I was watching a women’s Grand Slam tennis match with a friend who isn’t a sports fan. My friend appreciated the skills of the players — the shots, the gets, the athleticism — but she liked the tennis couture more. The match was a two-setter, rather quick and seemingly effortless.
The next time we watched a match together, it happened to be the 2012 Australian Open final between Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal. As the slugfest of a five-setter ended, both of us drained and exhilarated, my friend commented: “I guess five sets would be too much, physically, for the women.” Flabbergasted, I turned to her and said, “You’re saying this to me?”
Alas, my friend is not alone in her assumptions about the endurance of female athletes. Consider: In Thursday’s women’s U.S. Open semifinal, Amanda Anisimova beat Naomi Osaka in the third set, but could Osaka have come back in a fourth? After taking in the four-set dogfight between Djokovic and Taylor Fritz, I was thirsty to see Anisimova and Osaka scrap further. The unsubtle message of professional tennis is that women don’t have what it takes for that.
🔗Visit the link in our bio to read more. | Posted on 08/Sep/2025 00:26:22
