Wimbledon lifts prize pot to £53.5m however tells gamers extra money isn't any fast repair

[ad_1] The All England Membership has insisted that it has listened to the complaints of main tennis gamers concerning prize cash compensation nevertheless it believes the answer to participant points lies in higher modifications to the construction of the game.

The prize cash fund for the 2025 Wimbledon Championships, which begins on 30 June, will rise to £53.5m, a 7% improve on final yr’s prize cash and double the quantity awarded in 2015. The lads’s and ladies’s champions will obtain £3m at this yr’s version, whereas gamers who lose within the first spherical will earn £66,000.

“In the event you look again 10 years, you possibly can see the rise over that interval and seven% this yr,” mentioned Debbie Jevans, the Chair of the All England Membership, talking at Wimbledon’s annual pre-event media briefing. We have now listened to the gamers. We have now engaged with the gamers.”

Earlier this yr, the overwhelming majority of the highest 20 males’s and ladies’s gamers despatched a letter to the grand slam tournaments requesting a rise in prize cash and arguing that they need to be entitled to a higher share of the numerous revenues generated by the slams.

“Sally [Bolton, the AELTC chief executive] had a gathering in Paris, as did I, with numerous them. What I feel is necessary, which after all has been mentioned with them, the give attention to simply the prize cash on the 4 occasions, ie grand slams, doesn't get to the center of what the problem is for tennis,” mentioned Jevans. “The problem with tennis is the truth that gamers don’t have an low season, which they need, they've growing accidents that they're talking about. We have now all the time mentioned that we as Wimbledon are prepared to interact and discuss with the excursions to try to discover options and that door stays open.”

Based on Jevans, the gamers left their conferences with an understanding of the attitude of the All England Membership: “I feel as a participant, having been one, I do know you all the time have a look at what the prize cash is,” mentioned Jevans. “However while you sit down and have the time to speak to them and clarify, they do perceive that the alternatives that may circulation if we’re capable of change the entire construction of the calendar, there's a greater image on the market.”

The Wimbledon organisers additionally defended the choice to maneuver the lads’s and ladies’s singles finals one hour later to 4pm regardless of the potential for a late end within the males’s last. On Sunday, Carlos Alcaraz’s sensational five-set win over Jannik Sinner within the French Open last on Sunday took 5 hours and 29 minutes.

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“As we thought in regards to the explanation why we need to do it, it’s about making certain an improved expertise for all concerned,” mentioned Bolton. “Whether or not that’s the doubles finalists having higher certainty over their schedule, whether or not it’s the followers having the chance to expertise a day which builds to the crescendo of the singles finals or making certain that we've our champions topped in entrance of the widest attainable viewers.”