{"id":912777,"date":"2026-10-01T23:16:14","date_gmt":"2026-10-01T23:16:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/912777\/"},"modified":"2026-10-01T23:16:14","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T23:16:14","slug":"womens-tennis-tour-announces-prize-money-parity-with-mens-events-tennis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/912777\/","title":{"rendered":"Women\u2019s tennis tour announces prize money parity with men\u2019s events | Tennis"},"content":{"rendered":"

All combined WTA 1000 tournaments will award women equal prize \u2060money to the men from 2027, the Women\u2019s Tennis<\/a> Association has announced, \u2060with the Italian \u2060Open \u200band other major events joining the rest of the category in offering the \u2060same payouts.<\/p>\n

Billie Jean King has often said that she was moved to form the women\u2019s professional tennis circuit after earning $600 for her 1970 Italian Open title while Ilie Nastase took home $3,500 for winning the men\u2019s tournament the same year.<\/p>\n

In 2027 \u2013 nearly six decades after King\u2019s title at the Foro Italico \u2013 the Rome clay-court event will finally award women the same amount of total prize money as men, as part a \u201cmajor milestone\u201d for the women\u2019s tour.<\/p>\n

The initiative means that all combined WTA 1000 events will award equal prize money for the first time. Besides the Italian Open, the holdouts had been the Canadian Open and the Cincinnati Open. The other combined 1000 events in Indian Wells, California; Miami; Madrid and Beijing; as well as all four Grand Slams, already offer equal prize money.<\/p>\n

\u201cAchieving equal prize money across all combined WTA 1000 tournaments is a major milestone for tennis,\u201d WTA chair Valerie Camillo said. \u201cIt demonstrates the WTA\u2019s continued commitment to leading the sports industry in delivering our athletes competitive and financial equality and is a testament to the enduring nature of the founding vision of the WTA.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2023, Italian Open organisers pledged to have equal prize money starting in 2025 but didn\u2019t carry through on the promise. The total men\u2019s prize money this year in Rome was $9.6m while the women got $8.3m.<\/p>\n

Also announced for next year was an expanded WTA 250-level tournament in Manila, Philippines, amid massive interest surrounding home player Alex Eala, who is ranked 18th.<\/p>\n

Also, the number of annual WTA 500 level tournaments required for players ranked in the top 50 was reduced from six to four, resulting in a total base playing commitment of 14 WTA tournaments plus the four grand slams in 2027.<\/p>\n

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The WTA relied heavily on its tour architecture council, a working group chaired by third-ranked Jessica Pegula. \u201cAs players, we\u2019re on the road most of the year, so having more flexibility in our schedules and commitments makes a real difference,\u201d Pegula said. \u201cThe 2027 changes give us more ability to build our seasons around our own goals \u2013 competitively and personally. That\u2019s an impactful step forward for players.\u201d<\/p>\n

The WTA said the updates \u201cwill be implemented as a one-year pilot\u201d for 2027, allowing it to \u201cevaluate the impact of the changes across the tour to inform decisions for 2028 and beyond\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"All combined WTA 1000 tournaments will award women equal prize \u2060money to the men from 2027, the Women\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":912778,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,85,747],"class_list":["post-912777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/912777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=912777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/912777\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/912778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=912777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=912777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=912777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}