Commentary: Have market forces really decided mens tennis is more valuable than women’s tennis?

The second response to these figures is that the free market has decided that mens tennis is a more valuable product. But events at last months French Open show the holes in this theory.

Explaining her decision to schedule mens matches rather than Womens for nine of the 10 primetime night sessions, tournament director and former Wimbledon Champion Amelie Mauresmo explained, Right now … you have more attraction, appeal [in] general, for the mens matches.

Meanwhile, Womens matches remain almost invariably the first on the court in the mornings, when Spectator numbers both in person and on TV are at their lowest.

Far from being a free market, subjective decisions like these have a real influence on which players are given the best chance of breaking through to a mass audience and creating a market of paying consumers.

One of the great fallacies in sports is that if the quality is high, the audience will come. If that were the case, Swiatek would be the biggest show in town. But in reality, sport is a soap opera: We come for the people behind the rackets, their backstories, their rivalries.

Netflix is ​​currently filming a documentary following the top players of both sexes as they navigate these years Slams. I hope it is a sign of things to come. Give the Emerging generation of Womens stars their share of the Limelight, give them their share of the money, and watch the sport as a whole thrive.