Wimbledon ladies not wearing coloured shorts is a bit of a shame

[morelippy]

My understanding was a group of women players had campaigned for the AETC to relax its all white policy to allow the women to manage their periods more easily.. doing away with the fear of leaks on their white shorts/pants.

I had expected to see them taking advantage of this and all wearing them as a show of solidarity. Now those who do will look like they're announcing their period all

Yes they now have the right to choose which means that can choose to wear white. They shouldn't feel pressured to wear dark colours in some show of solidarity, and nobody should be disappointed in them for wearing white. It should be a completely free choice

I support the idea of wearing darker shorts although I also think the length of the skirts have got ridiculously short in recent years, so it means the shorts are very visible, so sponsors may be not keen on different colours. And for a lot of players the sponsorship is the money rather than tournament prizes.

However in 30 years of playing tennis and having periods, I have never leaked on my shorts enough in a match/game/practice to show through, nor have I ever noticed anyone else has, and I've played at enough tournaments with all white rules.
I'd prefer if women could call a toilet break at any time because knowing you've started and you've used up your toilet break or you need to wait for the next change in ends/end of set is very uncomfortable and doubly so when you're being watched.

You do tend to play less well when you're on your period anyway, so I suspect most players probably use the pill or similar to make sure they're not on over major tournaments like Wimbledon.

I got it from the daily fixtures part of the LTA website, which I opened and checked just before posting.

We're long past the days when menstruating women were seen as unclean, periods an embarassing secret that must be concealed so men would never suspect.

By definition showing solidarity with those that fought for the choice means some choosing to wear white else you're taking the choice away