Women’s tennis players work just as hard during a three-set match as men do over five sets, due to their different physiology, a sports science expert has confirmed.

The comments follow men’s No. 1 Novak Djokovic’s comments last week, suggesting men deserve more money than women because their matches generate more ticket sales.

An expert told The New Daily female tennis players certainly deserved equal prize money, regardless of Djokovic’s argument, due to the extra demands the sport places on the female body.

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His words came after a controversial 24 hours, triggered by ex-Indian Wells tournament director Raymond Moore.

Moore, who quit his post after a backlash, said: “If I was a lady player, I’d go down every night on my knees and thank God that Roger Federer and Rafa Nadal were born, because they have carried this sport.”

But Curtin University biomechanist and exercise scientist, Associate Professor Kevin Netto, told The New Daily that it was anatomically harder for a woman’s body to play tennis at an elite level.

“Women actually have less of a physical capacity for tennis compared to men,” Associate Professor Netto said.

“Women’s muscle mass is lower. Women usually have to work harder than men in professional non-contact sport.

“It is just as difficult for a woman to play a three-set tennis match than it is for a man to play a five-set tennis match.” 

He explained that women’s shoulder and upper body strength had a 20 per cent lower capacity for power than a man’s.

This meant tennis was a particularly difficult sport for women to play, compared to something like sprinting, where time discrepancies between sexes were not so big.

Tennis was a more risky sport for a woman to play, Associate Professor Netto argued.

Women had wider hips than men, he said, meaning the femur bone in the thigh bent at an inward angle.

This made anterior cruciate ligament injuries for female non-contact sportspeople much more frequent.

“The pay parity should be there,” he said.

Women and men receive equal pay at all grand slam events – but the playing field is not level on the respective tours each year.

Djokovic makes amends

While Mr Moore apologised for his comments and Djokovic moved to clarify his, female tennis ace Serena Williams reacted angrily to the pair’s inference.

She labelled Mr Moore’s comments in particular as a disservice to female athletes and “every woman on this planet that has ever tried to stand up for what they believed in and being proud to be a woman”.

On Thursday, Djokovic posted on Twitter to show he’d met with Billie Jean King and Chris Evert.

He also explained in a Facebook post that he had spoken to Williams.

“This was never meant to be made into a fight between genders and differences in pay, but in the way all players are rewarded for their play and effort,” he posted.

King founded the Women’s Tennis Association in 1973 to advocate for equal pay while Evert has been an outspoken voice for gender equality in the sport.

Always an honour. Love that we share the opinion of using the sport as platform for good https://t.co/dps1ysX8hB

— Novak Djokovic (@DjokerNole) March 24, 2016