Androgens And Women

Robson displayed few nerves as she opened play on Wimbledon’s new No2 court with its 4,000 capacity. The 15-year-old has such a natural serve which, coupled with her being left-handed, a rarity in the women’s game at the moment, is always going to cause problems against even the best players. Slovakia’s Daniela Hantuchova, ranked No32, saw an ace zip past her on the opening point at 102mph, which quickly gave the former Wimbledon quarter-finalist an indication that this was not going to be an easy outing.

The professionals have been aware of her imminent arrival for some time now, though because of her age Robson is limited to the amount of matches she can play on the WTA Tour. By winning the junior title here last year she received a wild card into the main draw, and she let nobody down. Robson goes for her shots, either on the forehand or her double-fisted backhand, and generally her weight of shot was initially greater than the 26-year-old Hantuchova who lost the opening set in 38 minutes.

Losing an opening set, prior to victory, is hardly unusual in the women’s game though when Robson broke for a 3-2 lead in the second there seemed the possibility of a real upset. But Hantuchova broke back immediately, with Robson double faulting twice. This was not out of trepidation. Robson goes for her second serve with gusto, and although her strongest weapon turned out to be her Achilles heel, it was mostly because she strove for a little too much. Experience will sort that out.

Hantuchova began to find more depth and power in the second set, cranking up the pressure significantly, as was to expected from a player who was formerly in the top 10, and who has been playing at slam level since 2001. She played controlled tennis, was generally unfazed by Robson’s winners, of which there were many, and was careful to hold her serve in the third set.

Robson began to fret a little, as was to be expected, and the double faults continued. But there was no doubting the pedigree of her play. Essentially she is still a junior. Give her another year or two and there seems little doubt, providing she remains focused and fit, that she will be challenging for a place at the top table of the women’s game.

I cannot say that I was a women’s cricket agnostic, but perhaps a reluctance born from uninformed skepticism kept me away. I was familiar with many of the players, mixed with them at functions and so forth, but never had I seen them play. So to watch them perform with such vivacity and skill was an absolute revelation. It seems unfair to single out individuals, but by the end of the tournament, I can say truthfully that in my opinion, Claire Taylor is not only a very fine pugnacious batter but has incredible drive, a cricket brain to die for, and a rounded view of life. Further, I saw no wicketkeeper in either men’s or women’s tournament to better Sarah Taylor, a wonderfully gifted youngster.

The World Twenty 20 has been a terrific advertisement for the women’s game in this country, something, to his great credit, championed by the board chairman Giles Clarke, whose beam on Sunday was one of real delight rather than told-you-so smugness. Scheduling the two competitions to run simultaneously was a masterstroke by the ICC, and I never thought I would write that. It gave women’s cricket the sort of promotional opportunity that would cost millions and they grasped it.

Personally I hope it is one in the eye for the naysayers who belittle women’s cricket. They don’t bowl as fast as men, don’t hit it as hard. It is a puerile argument. Of course they don’t. Neither does Becky Adlington swim as fast as Michael Phelps, nor Lorena Ochoa hit the ball like Tiger Woods. Venus Williams would not take a game from Roger Federer. Would Victoria Pendleton outsprint Chris Hoy? We do not deride or patronise any of these brilliant females yet women cricketers have been patronised and sneered at. It is all about context.

It is not all roses though. I don’t think I have the attention span to watch a women’s Test match, which even those involved admit can be excruciating. But one-day matches are actually the sort of sport that those who wish to learn ?children particularly ?should watch because the way that the top women play is an achievable aspiration for good male cricketers. Kathy Brunt and Holly Colvin rather than Umer Gul or Ajantha Mendis should be bowling role models for 99 per cent of the cricket playing population. I shall go again this season if time permits.

Yet the England team did not reach the level they have without help. Between them the ECB, the Chance to Shine initiative and Sport England have given the top women the paid opportunity to coach and act as ambassadors in schools and clubs to offset the unpaid commitment to playing which next year will amount to between 100 and 120 days exclusive of coaching. They are the lucky ones in the women’s game, the envy of other countries who lose players quite simply because they cannot afford to carry on. Central contracts cannot be far away. In a way though, their singular dominance, the standard soaring above others, will be its own worst enemy. At present the global standard is generally pitiful, serious competition coming only from Australia, New Zealand and India. So while England look after their own, ICC has to seize on the impetus lent by these past few weeks and pour resources into developing healthy competition. The worry is that the gap will widen, not close, and there will be no viable opposition.

For England, expansion is the game now. Clare Connor, the former captain now in charge of women’s cricket in this country, is adamant that the nettle has to be grasped on the back of the current achievements, the game promoted aggressively, the players too. These women should be English sporting icons as much as any of our celebrated female athletes. Already, women’s cricket is said to be the fastest growing women’s team sport in the country. There are now more than 450 clubs with women’s and girls’ sections. Participation has increased by 49 per cent in the last 18 months. Think what hammering home the current success will do.

So there we have it. They have a fan in me. Today they will play Australia again in a T20 at Derby followed by five one-day internationals and then a one-off Test match in Worcester to try to retain the Ashes. Go and watch, please. Especially you skeptics, and admire for what they can do rather than scorn what they cannot. And be prepared for conversion.

The context could hardly have been more distracting. In between Baltacha’s first- and second-round matches, the LTA had called a media conference with Steve Martens, its player director, Nigel Sears, the Fed Cup captain, and Paul Annacone, who were asked to explain why nine of the 11 British players had lost on the first two days. Almost simultaneously Gerry Sutcliffe, the minister of sport, was speaking critically about the lack of return on the large investment which tennis players receive and suggesting that tennis’s funding might be cut.

After yesterday’s defeat Baltacha denied there had been any pressure from being the last surviving British woman and described Sutcliffe’s comments as harsh. “You have to look at the bigger picture and see what we have achieved ?we have done far better than we have in any of the other years,” she said.

“I can only speak on the women’s behalf but, if you look at the bigger picture and look at how the girls have actually done through the year, I don’t think that anyone’s budget should get cut for that. A lot of people think that everything revolves around Wimbledon but it is just one week of the year for us. If nothing happens at Wimbledon, it’s not the end of the world. All the girls’ rankings have gone up. It’s the most exciting its been for years.” She broke serve in the second game, held for 3? with three fine first serves, and might have completed a match-defining double break of serve had she managed a couple more makable returns. But from the moment she delivered a double fault, dropped serve, and allowed her opponent back to 3?, the mood of the match changed as fast as a westerly weather front. Flipkens used the slice more frequently to instill increasing doubt into Baltacha’s mind, came forward more, and usually very effectively, and raised her standard markedly once she got in front.

A killer blow was struck at 2-0 in the second set as Baltacha was trying to break back. She managed a feather-light touch on a lovely half-volley lob which sent Flipkens retreating full tilt, only for the Belgian to swivel eight feet into the hinterland and hammer the ball dramatically parallel to the sideline, whence it landed an inch inside the baseline.In the later stages Baltacha’s control began to disintegrate. Balls hurtled yards long, her forceful first serve deserted her, and one important smash from inside the forecourt found the net. At the end a beaming and rather surprised-looking Flipkens hailed the heavens and kissed the grass, while Baltacha stared straight ahead glassily, trying to numb her feelings, and halt the tears before admitting she had been “a little off”.

Prior to the match she had talked about her new beginning, how a coaching job had been “pretty much lined up for me” this year until her coach, Nino Severino, had persuaded her to continue playing, and how Kirk Bowyer, the strength and conditioning trainer, had helped her resolve fitness issues which for so long have prevented her realizing her potential. It’s been an amazing turnaround,” she said. We can only hope that what followed was not the start of another one.”

Only at Wimbledon they wheel them on to Center Court two at a time. Squished between a couple of matches involving two of the biggest names in men’s tennis, Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic, the order of play yesterday served up Victoria Azarenka of Belarus against Romania’s Sorana Cirstea, legends in their own change-overs very possibly but hardly the sorts you would willingly part with 62 notes to watch.

The stadium was barely a quarter full when the match started. In the royal box Tim Phillips, the chairman of the All England Club, sat in near isolation in the front row with hardly a seat taken in the rows behind. The look on his face suggested he was thinking of bringing forward his retirement rather than hanging around until the Olympics.

Down at the bottom of the grounds, meanwhile, not even within a resounding grunt of Centre Court, Serena Williams, the second seed and two times a winner of the women’s title, was showing off the full might and majesty of her game as she swept past Roberta Vinci.

On Thursday, the former champion Lleyton Hewitt warmed up the Center Court crowd with a destruction of the No5 seed Juan Mart韓 del Potro before Andy Murray took apart Ernests Gulbis, one of the brightest young players on the men’s tour. In between, Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark played the Russian Maria Kirilenko in a match that lasted just long enough for the punters to work out who was who. Heaven forefend that anyone from this parish should ever think such a thing but there were those ruffians who muttered that maybe the easiness on the eye of Wozniacki and Kirilenko earned them their ticket to Center Court. If this were so it would rather scupper the BGT theory that says what audiences like is ?how to put this? ?homely types such as Susan Boyle, but the idea that the lookers get preference is given further traction by the fact that on Wednesday the women’s match was Maria Sharapova against the Argentinian Gisela Dulko. Look them up on Google ?and Azarenka and Cirstea ?and make your own judgment.

Those consigned to the wings while Wozniacki and Kirilenko executed what may well rank as one of the most anonymous matches of these championships included Svetlana Kuznetsova, winner of the French Open earlier this month, and the world No1 Dinara Safina, neither of whom was particularly impressed by being downgraded to an outer court. “I mean of course it’s not fair,” Safina said, “but then I’m not doing the schedule. If tournament directors or referees think this way…” She tailed off, shrugging her shoulders to signify her irritation. “I have to think that if I win my match then the next day I have the chance to play on a bigger court.”

As ever, the enigmatic Serena Williams gave one of those answers that left you wondering which side of the argument she was on. “Well, I’m happy to have gotten my match over and to have won. I always play on Court No2 ?it’s not a court for Roger [Federer], but it’s definitely a court for me,” she said before pausing to weigh up this last bit. “But I haven’t won Wimbledon five times.” She has played in four finals, though.

Kuznetsova described the whole issue as “a weird thing”. “If you look at the schedule it’s not about only me,” she said. “It’s about Dinara on Court No2, Venus on Court No1 and the girls who are not very highly seeded they play on Centre. I respect them. They’re great players, for sure. But this is what’s weird for me: what’s their strategy, what’s their plan of making the schedule? This is what surprises me a little bit.”

It has been an incredible few months for the team that Edwards captains. In March, they won the World Cup in Sydney (the men’s team have never won it) and last weekend, they won the World Twenty20. They have also won their last two Ashes series. In the last few weeks, the team has been praised by Gordon Brown and interviewed on TV shows, and Edwards has been awarded an MBE. “I think if you’d told me two years ago we would achieve all this, I wouldn’t have believed it,” she says. “We weren’t in a happy place. We weren’t performing well at all: we only won one game out of eight in India, came third in the World Series. To win a World Cup in 18 months looked a long way off.”

That they achieved that, and more, is down to several factors: a new coach, an investment program, a tight-knit, talented team and Edwards’s fierce skippership. She is slight, her blond hair pulled up under an England cap, all steady gaze and browned cheekbones. Despite her recent success, her life hasn’t suddenly become more glamorous – we sit in the lobby of a characterless hotel next to the Derby ground where the England women’s team have been training in preparation for the five one-day internationals against Australia and the Ashes test, which will unfold over the next couple of weeks.

I’m not sure I’ve ever met anyone so driven. Beneath the more banal sportspeak that she, like all athletes, tends to slip into (lines such as: “I had to take hold of the team and show direction, lead from the front”) she has a single-minded devotion to the game that is unnerving. Winning is everything, she says. After they won the World Cup, Edwards could not stop sobbing. “I was so emotional. It was the relief that we’d finally achieved something, and the knowledge of how much work we had put in. I say it to the girls as a bit of a joke, but losing really isn’t an option.”

This 29-year-old batsman (batswoman sounds weird, doesn’t it?) can’t remember cricket ever not being a part of her life. Her father, a potato farmer, and her uncle both played for clubs in Cambridgeshire, where she grew up, and she remembers watching at the boundary edge with her brother when she was three. “My mum would be there making the teas, and the choice was either help make the tea or play cricket. Cricket became my life.” She practiced in the garden with her brother and father, and was encouraged to play at primary school. She was lucky that her secondary school took cricket so seriously, a rarity in state schools; she was the only girl on the team and became captain. “Those days were brilliant. The boys had grown up with me and I was treated like one of them. I didn’t get any special treatment.” She would turn up to play other schools and their boys would wonder what she was doing there, she says. “I had to develop quite a thick skin, but I think it made me mentally quite strong. I always felt in the spotlight – ‘Here comes the girl’ – and I suppose there was pressure to prove myself, but I just played as well as I could. The best one was walking into pavilions and having to ask where the ladies’ toilets were so I could get changed. They would look at me strangely and point to some tiny cupboard hidden away, and I would have to get in there with all my gear.”

It must have been depressing knowing that the best boys on her school team could potentially have cricketing careers, when that wasn’t really an option for her – despite being selected to play for the England women’s team when she was 16 (at that time, the youngest ever female player to be picked). “I did think that if I was a boy, I would be getting further. But when I started playing for England, that was the ultimate for me,” she says. “I didn’t care if I was getting paid or not, I was just desperate to play cricket for England, there was nothing else I wanted to do.”

In the 13 years that Edwards has been playing internationally, the women’s game – and women’s standing in cricket generally – has improved. In 1998, women were admitted to the influential Marylebone Cricket Club after more than 200 years of male exclusivity. This year, two women were appointed as advisers to the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) for the first time, and Clare Connor, the head of women’s cricket at the ECB, became the first woman to be given a senior position at the International Cricket Council, the sport’s governing body. In April, Edwards’s team-mate Claire Taylor became the first woman to be named one of Wisden’s cricketers of the year.

These days, the women’s team has corporate sponsors, but when Edwards first started they had to buy their own kit, and the women played in skirts and culottes, rather than tracksuits. “That was horrendous. It didn’t help because people didn’t take us seriously. I know where I’ve come from and where women’s cricket has come from, and realize that you can’t take any of this for granted. It was hard at the start – you’d have to pay for your own trips. My parents had to pay for me to go on training camps. I wouldn’t be doing this without the sacrifices of time and money my mum and dad made.”