Maternity leave – a time allowed for mothers after the birth of their child to spend time with their new baby. After this duration of time, the mother is sent back to work and expected to pick up where she left off. This is not the case for the WTA, Women’s Tennis Association.
On Sept. 1, 2017, Serena Williams gave birth to her daughter Olympia Ohanian Jr. Serena took 13 months away from tennis in order to give birth to her. Serena left that game as number one but came back to the game ranked as 491 in the world. At 35 and seven months old, Williams was the oldest person ever to hold that position.
The WTA has a system called protected ranking. This allows an injured player to preserve a rank that has been averaged from the months leading to injury. This ranking does not apply to seeding though. In other terms, this means that a player can hold a protected world ranking for up to eight tournaments which includes two Grand Slams during a 12-month period. This avoids qualifying but does not protect seedings.
At the Miami Open which began on March 17, Williams entered the tournament as an unseeded player, a wildcard even. She was drawn against Naomi Osaka who became the Indian Wells Champion a week before the Miami Open. Williams ended up losing to Osaka in straight sets. James Blake, director of the Miami Open said himself, “These kind of things shouldn’t happen.”
This has led to questioning of tennis regulations and rules on maternity leave. Why are women being punished for giving birth to a child? Why aren’t they being protected? Why are the same rules applied for birth as they are for breaking a bone? The protected ranking rule is only protection of a title, but not against anything more. Simona Halep, the current WTA number one, also believes that Williams should have been given the top seed in the Miami Open.
The way the WTA handles maternity leave is a punishment towards women having a child. At any other work place, it would be the same as leaving to have a child, only to come back to start at the bottom and be forced to work your way up to where you were when you left. “It’s not as if she left because of injury and lost her passion for the game,” Blake said. “She had a kid which we should all be celebrating so when she comes back there should be a grace period where she can still be seeded.”
Williams had a healthy pregnancy but days leading up to the birth began troubles for the mother and baby. As contractions began, Olympia’s heart rate plummeted, forcing Williams into an emergency cesarean section. But after the birth, things only got worse. Williams has a history of blood clots despite her overall strength and health. Williams takes blood thinners daily in order to reduce the risk of blood clots but stopped taking the medication after her C-section in order to allow her surgical wound to heal.
The following day, Williams gasped for air in her recovery room. A scan was conducted and doctors found that small blood clots were in her lungs. Surgery was conducted to correct the clot and Williams was released a week after giving birth. Due to this overwhelming amount of health stress and the stress from being a new mother, Williams was physically incapable of getting out of bed for six weeks.
Maternity leave is a time allowed for mothers to recover from childbirth and spend time with their new bundles of joy. For Serena, leaving the WTA at number one in the world only to return to being unseeded is an unfair disadvantage to her and all other new moms in the tennis game. Though Williams had a tough childbirth, she is ready to hit the courts better than ever with a new number one fan by her side. “I’m so glad I had a daughter,” Williams told media. “I want to teach her that there are no limits.”
