PA\u00a0Media\/dpa<\/p>\n
Paris<\/p>\n
Wimbledon organisers are hopeful the tournament will avoid the sort of player protests seen at the French Open two weeks ago.<\/p>\n
Amid an ongoing dispute between a group of leading players and the grand slam tournaments, most of the world\u2019s top stars limited their pre-event media activities to 15 minutes each.<\/p>\n
That symbolised what the players say is the approximately 15% of revenue the French Open pays out in prize money – well short of the 22% they believe the tournaments should be moving towards them.<\/p>\n
Wimbledon prize money for this year\u2019s championships will be revealed at a press conference next Thursday, and rarely will there have been such scrutiny on the announcement.<\/p>\n
Prize money at Roland Garros increased 9.5% year on year but that compared unfavourably to a 20% rise at last year\u2019s US Open and 16% at the Australian Open in January.<\/p>\n
Last year, Wimbledon paid \u00a353.5 million ($72 million) in prize money, a 7% rise on 2024, but it only equated to less than 13% of revenue.<\/p>\n
To hit the 16% demanded by the players for this year, Wimbledon would need to up prize money to around \u00a370 million.<\/p>\n
That kind of rise appears unlikely in one go but the Press Association understands organisers are optimistic the players will be content enough with prize money levels to stave off any kind of protest.<\/p>\n
Wimbledon chief executive Sally Bolton met the players\u2019 representative Larry Scott in Paris on Monday to discuss prize money and the players\u2019 other demands, which include contributions to welfare programmes and a greater say in decision making.<\/p>\n
A Wimbledon spokesperson said: \u201cWe were pleased to have the opportunity to meet with the players\u2019 representative at Roland Garros.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur discussions about the arrangements for this year\u2019s Championships were positive. We look forward to continuing these discussions in further detail after The Championships.\u201d <\/p>\n
Scott, who was formerly chairman and chief executive of the WTA, also had a meeting with US Open chiefs having received a promise from the French Open that there will be concrete proposals on the issues at hand within the next month.<\/p>\n
The players are understood to have been emboldened by the impact their protest – which mainly targeted broadcasters, a key source of income for the slams – had, potentially making action at Wimbledon more likely.<\/p>\n
The group of players, which includes world number ones Aryna Sabalenka and Jannik Sinner, first sent a letter to all the slams last spring, and they have become increasingly frustrated by what they deem as a lack of engagement and respect.<\/p>\n
In Rome last month, Sabalenka raised the prospect of a boycott, although there is certainly not universal support for such action yet.<\/p>\n
Speaking to reporters on Monday, French Open tournament director Amelie Mauresmo said they had been advised by lawyers not to engage with the players but had chosen to do so.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe most important (thing) is to have this partnership with the players,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn my opinion, because this communication is back for us, as far as we are concerned, I\u2019m confident that things are going to move forward and that everyone will understand each other.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere needs to be steps from both sides to make sure that this partnership <\/p>\n
is working.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PA\u00a0Media\/dpa Paris Wimbledon organisers are hopeful the tournament will avoid the sort of player protests seen at the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13640,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1053,5615,1054,5614,378,517,3006,5617,5616,5618,1706,285],"class_list":["post-13639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wimbledon","tag-at","tag-avoid","tag-french","tag-hope","tag-of","tag-open","tag-player","tag-protests","tag-repeat","tag-seen","tag-to","tag-wimbledon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13639","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13639"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13639\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}