Serena Williams didn’t win the recent tennis event at Indian Wells, but she prevailed in a battle against sexism when the exec in charge resigned after making comments many considered anti-women.

Serena Williams. Photo via Wikimedia Commons
Serena Williams. Photo via Wikimedia Commons
As the Desert Sun reported Tuesday:

“A day after making inflammatory comments about the Women’s Tennis Association, Raymond Moore stepped down as the CEO of the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, tournament owner Larry Ellison announced Monday night.”

Ellison said: “Nearly half a century ago, Billie Jean King began her historic campaign for the equal treatment of women in tennis. What followed is an ongoing, multi-generational, progressive movement to treat women and men in sports equally. Thanks to the leadership of Billie Jean, Martina Navratilova, Venus Williams, Serena Williams and so many other great women athletes, an important measure of success has already been achieved. I’m proud to say that it is now a decade long tradition at our tournament at Indian Wells, and all the major tennis tournaments, to pay equal prize money to both the women and the men.”

During a media breakfast Sunday at the BNP Paribas Open, Moore said the WTA “rides on the coattails of men” and that if he was “a lady player,” he would “go down on his knees every night and thank God that Roger Federer and Rafa Nadal were born because they have carried the sport.”

That led to major pushback from Williams and others.

“Obviously, I don’t think any woman should be down on their knees thanking anybody like that,” Williams said. “I think Venus [Williams], myself, a number of players have been — if I could tell you every day how many people say they don’t watch tennis unless they’re watching myself or my sister, I couldn’t even bring up that number. So I don’t think that is a very accurate statement. I think there is a lot of women out there who are more… are very exciting to watch. I think there are a lot of men out there who are exciting to watch. I think it definitely goes both ways. I think those remarks are very much mistaken and very, very, very inaccurate.”

She also said:

“Well, if you read the transcript, you can only interpret it one way. I speak very good English. I’m sure he does too. You know, there’s only one way to interpret that. Get on your knees, which is offensive enough, and thank a man, which is not — we, as women, have come a long way. We shouldn’t have to drop to our knees at any point.”

Other reactions to the match made in somewhere:

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