This tournament was the last of the four Grand Slam events to award equal prize money to men and women, starting in 2007. And it won’t be until next year that the women’s qualifying tournament will have the same number of spots as the men’s. It continues to manage criticism about women not getting high-profile court assignments the way men do.

Mark Leyland, a tennis fan from northwest England, brought documentation of the court-assignment disparity to Wimbledon officials. He scoured decades of newspapers, mostly on microfiche, and made note of every match played on Wimbledon’s two main show courts from 1993 to 2017. Leyland got a meeting with Wimbledon officials and told them, “I love your championship, I love your tradition, but this gender inequity is one tradition that you need to change,” Leyland said Wednesday in a telephone interview.

Still, on Wednesday, the women of Wimbledon had a conspicuously bright spotlight as they were featured in five of the seven matches held on the two biggest courts. It was a rare occurrence at a tournament where women’s matches have accounted for just 39 percent of the matches on the feature courts the past 25 years.

The showcase was such an oddity that Serena Williams’s older sister, Venus, a five-time Wimbledon champion, said she “was really overjoyed” when she saw the schedule.

“We have a lot of equal play on the main courts in the other three Grand Slams,” Venus Williams said after her three-set victory over Alexandra Dulgheru in the first match on No. 1 Court.

The balance shifts back to the men on Thursday, when five men’s matches are scheduled on the two feature courts compared with two women’s matches. Tournament officials say their priority is to feature the best-known players (and top British competitors) on the biggest courts. With five of the top eight seeds on the women’s side already out of the tournament, it could be back to the status quo on the main stages from here on out.

What won’t change is the preoccupation with classifying women. Another Grand Slam event, the French Open, also uses the courtesy titles Madame and Mademoiselle for the women — but not Monsieur for the men.