HeForShe global champion Haggerty affirms ITF's gender equality stance | ITF
Article 26 Sep 2024

HeForShe global champion Haggerty affirms ITF's gender equality stance

Ross McLean

26 Sep 2024

This week saw the staging of the 2024 UN Women's HeForShe Summit – a landmark event marking the 10th anniversary of the transformative initiative – in New York.

Tennis was the first sport to have been nominated to join the HeForShe movement – and remains the only sport represented – with ITF President Dave Haggerty a global champion and the ITF a key ally.

Haggerty features in a specially-produced video for the HeForShe Summit during which he discusses the clear and measurable goals the ITF has set in support of the HeForShe agenda. 

On-court commitments:

    • Enact a global development strategy to close the gender gap and address a drop in women and girlsʼ participation.
    • Invest in and offer a balanced tournament calendar with equal playing opportunities and pathway for rising men and women stars.

Off-court commitments:

  • Leadership: 18.7 per cent of board members are women, minimum target of 30 per cent.
  • Coaching: 22.3 per cent of coaches are women, minimum target of 30 per cent.
  • Officiating: 31 per cent of White Badge level officials are women, minimum target of 40 per cent.

The ITF Advantage All gender equality strategy provides an overarching framework for specific initiatives related to HeForShe commitments, including actions around leadership, coaching and officiating. It also focuses upon equality in terms of playing opportunities, prize money and global communications.

Leadership:

  • The ITF constitutional change, approved in 2023, will ensure minimum gender representation on the board from 2028 onwards. At the 2027 elections, at least five out of 16 board members, or 31 per cent, must be female (including one female athlete representative).
  • The ITF has supported Regional Association constitutional reforms to facilitate the promotion of female candidates and help deliver greater gender equality on boards. For example, Confederation of African Tennis board representation increased from nil in 2021 to 28 per cent in 2023.
  • The Advantage All Leadership Programme continues to provide webinars, networking and mentoring opportunities to female leaders.
  • Following an Advantage All “I Pledge” campaign, 85 National Association and Regional Association Presidents committed their organisations to tackling gender equality.
  • The Advantage All Reward & Recognition Programme, now in its third year, recognises and showcases the best gender equality initiatives globally.
  • The ITF Men as Allies programme, launched in 2023, continues to encourage male leaders to address gender equality within their spheres of influence and become champions of change.

Coaching:

    • Female Coaches Network webinars have been held in all ITF Development Officer regions.
    • At the ITF World Coaches Conference in November 2023, 40 per cent of keynote speakers were women, along with 36 per cent of workshop presenters.

Officiating:

  • ITF Advantage All seminars and networking sessions were held at the Paris 2024 Olympic Tennis Event and Paralympic Wheelchair Tennis Event.

Further details of the ITF’s commitment to the HeForShe movement through the ITF Advantage All gender equality strategy can be found in the 2024 HeForShe Alliance Impact Report. However, there are some key results in highlight.

  • Under new title sponsor Gainbridge, the 2023 Billie Jean King Cup Finals offered record player prize money of $9.6 million – $1.6 million more than the previous year and equivalent to the player prize money awarded to the men in the 2023 Davis Cup.
  • Since 2019, the percentage of female candidates putting themselves forward for election to the ITF board has nearly doubled from 14 per cent in 2019 to 24 per cent in 2023.
  • The ITF has invested $2.5 million to increase both the number of womenʼs ITF tournaments on the ITF World Tennis Tour and the prize money at womenʼs tournaments. The ITF is committed to offering an equal number of playing opportunities for men and women at this professional level, with further plans to address other imbalances by 2026.

The ITF Advantage All gender equality strategy continues to make a cultural and tangible difference for women in tennis – on and off court.