Marina Izidro: Does sport do enough for pregnant athletes?

“I can’t wait to get back on the court, but there’s a little life update for 2023.” This is how Japanese tennis player Naomi Osaka announced this week on social media that she is pregnant.

The post, with an image of an ultrasound of the baby, ended days of speculation after the former world number one withdrew from the Australian Open without explanation. She had already left the courts on another occasion to take care of her mental health and it could be a new episode. It was pregnancy.

Osaka and Germany’s Angelique Kerber – three Grand Slam titles and also pregnant – could benefit from a WTA rule that took effect in 2019. The Women’s Tennis Association has established that athletes who become mothers are entitled to a special ranking and protected that can be used in 12 tournaments over three years.

The measure gives the tennis players a little more peace of mind, but is it enough, since names like Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic, among others, had children throughout their careers without having to sacrifice their professional lives or rankings? Ukrainian Elina Svitolina was number four in the world at the end of 2021, announced her pregnancy and had a child last year. She will return in 2023 and has plummeted to 236 in the rankings. Australian Ashley Barty and British Johanna Konta are some of the tennis players who have recently announced that they are pregnant, but after having retired.

History repeats itself in all sports: athletes postpone the decision to be a mother as long as possible or even give up on having children. Many are afraid to break the news to coaches and clubs, pregnancy will be seen as a lack of ambition and they will lose sponsorship or job.

In the case of tennis, what happened to Serena Williams helped with the rule change. The American was number one in the world when she took a career break to have her daughter in 2017. She returned in 2018 at position 491 and was left out of major tournaments, which generated a great debate and the WTA reacted. “If I were a man, I wouldn’t even be writing this, since I would be playing while my wife has the physical work of raising our family”, vented the owner of 23 Grand Slams when announcing her retirement last year and ending a brilliant trajectory.

A little over a year ago, I told here in this space how UK Sport, the British government body that coordinates sport in the United Kingdom, published an unprecedented guide on pregnancy, for athletes and organizations. The detailed recommendations range from how to plan training and competitions, how managers should create a welcoming environment to breastfeeding, how not to exclude the athlete in the final stretch of pregnancy, and gives the guarantee that those who receive financial support through UK Sport will be entitled to the benefit up to nine months after the baby’s birth.

There are other initiatives in the world of sport, and much to improve. Ideas and solutions can be shaped according to each modality, but the debate must continue. It would be great to see more proactive actions rather than waiting for athletes to have to be negative role models in order for something to change. Do sports organizations and clubs do enough? As we still need to debate the matter a lot, the answer is probably no.