Novak Djokovic, Jannik Sinner, Aryna Sabalenka and Coco Gauff are amongst 20 main tennis gamers who signed a letter despatched to the heads of the 4 Grand Slam tournaments searching for extra prize cash and a better say in what they referred to as “choices that immediately affect us.”
The letter, a duplicate of which was obtained Thursday by The Related Press, is dated March 21 and begins with a request for an in-person assembly at this month’s Madrid Open between representatives of the gamers and the 4 folks to whom it was addressed: Craig Tiley of the Australian Open, Stephane Morel of the French Open, Sally Bolton of Wimbledon and Lew Sherr of the US Open.
On the backside of the message are the handwritten signatures of 10 of the highest 11 girls within the rankings from the week of March 3 – Elena Rybakina’s identify is lacking – and the complete checklist of the highest 10 males that week.
The ladies are the No. 1-ranked Sabalenka, Gauff, Iga Swiatek, Jessica Pegula, Madison Keys, Jasmine Paolini, Emma Navarro, Zheng Qinwen, Paula Badosa and Mirra Andreeva. The boys are the No. 1-ranked Sinner – who’s at the moment serving a three-month doping ban – 24-time main champion Djokovic, Alexander Zverev, Carlos Alcaraz, Taylor Fritz, Casper Ruud, Daniil Medvedev, Andrey Rublev, Stefanos Tsitsipas and Alex de Minaur.
Of the 20, 15 have gained at the very least one Grand Slam title or reached a serious closing.
The gamers define three areas they need to concentrate on:
– Grand Slam tournaments ought to make monetary contributions to participant welfare applications funded by the 2 professional excursions.
– Prize cash ought to improve “to a extra applicable share of event revenues, reflective of the gamers’ contribution to event worth.”
– The athletes ought to have extra say in choices “immediately impacting competitors, in addition to participant well being and welfare.”
Information of the letter – which was first talked about by French sports activities newspaper L’Equipe – arrives about two weeks after the gamers’ affiliation co-founded by Djokovic filed an antitrust lawsuit in opposition to the ladies’s and males’s skilled excursions, the Worldwide Tennis Federation and the game’s integrity company in federal court docket in New York. Djokovic was not listed as one of many plaintiffs, as a result of he stated he wished to see different gamers step up.
That go well with seeks extra money for gamers, saying too little of the revenues find yourself within the athletes’ fingers, and lays out a collection of different complaints about the way in which the game is run.
The antitrust submitting final month included a reference to a report “that the U.S. Open generated extra income from the sale of 1 specialty cocktail ($12.8 million) than it paid to the boys’s and ladies’s champions mixed.”
The U.S. Tennis Affiliation provided a file complete of $75 million in complete compensation – which incorporates prize cash and payouts to cowl gamers’ bills – for its Grand Slam event in 2024. That represented a rise of about 15% from the $65 million provided in 2023 on the U.S. Open.
Based mostly on forex change figures on the occasions of the occasions, Wimbledon had about $64 million in prizes final yr, with the French Open and Australian Open each at about $58 million.
“The USTA is at all times obtainable for and welcomes open and direct conversations with gamers, whether or not on website on the U.S. Open or at some other level of the yr, as we’re persistently in search of methods to reinforce our occasion for the good thing about gamers and followers,” spokesman Brendan McIntyre stated in a written assertion.
“The USTA is extremely happy with the U.S. Open’s management in participant compensation all through its historical past and our help to develop skilled tennis not solely in the USA however worldwide,” he wrote. “This consists of providing equal prize cash to women and men for greater than 50 years and awarding the most important purse in tennis historical past on the 2024 U.S. Open.”
The following Grand Slam event is the French Open, with main-draw matches beginning in Paris on Might 25.