AS much as it pains me to admit it, the menfolk have a point; female players should not be earning equal prizemoney at the Australian Open.

Watching the men slave away over five gruelling sets in 40C-plus heat, it's become clear that they work harder, longer and generate more income than their female counterparts.

For years I've argued that it's not the length of the match that is critical, but the revenue generated. If a ticket to a women's game costs the same as that to a men's, and if the TV ratings are of a similar size, the women are entitled to an equal share of the spoils even if they play only a maximum of three sets.

The sobering reality is that while the female players generate plenty of media interest, tennis fans overwhelmingly prefer to watch the men. Figures don't lie; TV ratings back up the naysayers within the game who say the women's tour is dull and tired.

Not only do the women's games typically rate less than the men's, they are also over quicker, meaning less advertising revenue. By any fair definition, the women shouldn't be earning as much at grand slams and yet to suggest otherwise is deemed sexist and an attack on women's sport.

Current top 20 player Gilles Simon found that out the hard way in 2012 when he dared question the pay parity in grand slams and said perhaps the men were doing most of the heavy lifting in the lesser combined tournaments.

"I think that men's tennis is really ahead compared to women," he said. "When Rome became a joint tournament it was to save the women because I remember a final with 20 spectators." Two years on, nothing has changed.

The crux of the matter is this; there is not one good reason why women can't play five sets. The argument that female players are too weak and feeble for such exertion is absurd and more than a little insulting. These are elite athletes in their prime.

Wimbledon champion Pat Cash is bewildered by tennis administrators failing female players by not allowing them the opportunity to demonstrate their skill and stamina over five sets. Writing last year, Cash said: "In these times of sexual equality, it is unfair that women don't get the chance to prove they are equal to men when it comes to endurance and resilience.

"In the Olympic Games, the women's blue-riband sprint isn't held over 60m while the men run 100m. In swimming, it's not one length of the pool for the fairer sex compared with two for the men. In other racquet sports, such as squash, badminton and table tennis, it's the same for men and women."

It's hard to argue against that logic, although WTA CEO and chairwoman Stacey Allaster has tried. Her response to the equal prizemoney debate is to play the feminism card.

"Tennis, including the grand slams, is aligned with our modern, progressive society when it comes to the principle of equality," she said. "I can't believe in this day and age that anyone can still think otherwise. This type of thinking is exactly why the WTA was founded and we will always fight for what's right."

SURELY the ideal we all strive for as women is equal pay for equal work. There's nothing empowering about being treated like a delicate daisy who demands the same rewards but for 60 per cent of the output.

The lack of interest in the women's game was evident on Sunday night with scores of empty seats at Rod Laver Arena as Australia's Casey Dellacqua, played Canadian Eugenie Bouchard. The Sunday night session normally sells out weeks before the event, but some spectators stayed only for the Stanisla Wawrinka v Tommy Robredo game and left before the main event.

The Dellacqua match had solid if not spectacular figures, with 733,000 watching on Channel 7 and a further 110,000 watching 7Two. But it was comprehensively beaten in the ratings by the cricket on Channel 9 with an audience of 1.43 million. And they say the one-day form of the game is all but dead.

The men's final at the Australian Open consistently rates higher than the women's but that can be an unfair comparison as the men play on a Sunday night when TV audiences are at their peak, while the women play on Saturday evening.

Virginia Wade, the last British woman to win Wimbledon, thinks women's tennis has become boring and predictable due to the robotic personalities of the players and the lack of meaningful rivalries in the game. Others point to the lack of depth in the women's tour. But none of that explains why women are not playing the best of five sets at Melbourne Park this week or at the other grand slam events.

According to Forbes, the top four highest-paid female athletes in 2013 were tennis players. The expectation that these professional sportswomen should play the same number of sets as the men is not an unreasonable one.

Who knows, it may just be the shot in the arm that the women's tour needs.

Rita Panahi is a Herald Sun columnist. Twitter @Ritapanahi