Wimbledon continues to be a big topic of conversation even a week after the event has concluded for another year.
Jannik Sinner won the men’s singles title at Wimbledon for the first time this year, after beating his rival Carlos Alcaraz in a four set final.
The women’s singles final was certainly less competitive, with Iga Swiatek brushing Amanda Anisimova aside to win her sixth Grand Slam title.
Like any tennis tournament, Wimbledon is not averse to criticism and they have now been called out by two players who were in qualifying this year.
Photo by Franco Arland/Getty ImagesDaria Saville and Arina Rodionova call out Wimbledon for their treatment of players during qualifying
All four of the Grand Slam tournaments have a qualifying draw, consisting of 128 players in both men’s and women’s singles.
These 128 players compete over three rounds, before being whittled down to 16 players from each draw who will all be granted a spot in the main draw.
The Australian Open, Roland Garros and the US Open all host their qualifying on the same site, but Wimbledon does not and instead holds it 3.7 miles away in Roehampton.
One of the players competing in Wimbledon qualifying this year was former world number 20 Daria Saville, who actually lost in the first round.
Her namesake and new Australian compatriot Daria Kasatkina spoke to Saville about what she thought of playing at Wimbledon qualifying this year for her YouTube channel.
Discussing a number of different topics, Saville called out the food, quality of the grass courts and the reason Wimbledon changed the prize money.
Saville: “I haven’t eaten because it sucks here.”
Kasatkina: “Like sucks? We are comparing the main site to the qualies, what you can tell us about this?”
Saville: “…It’s fine…To be fair I don’t have appetite so…Main draw food, I mean it’s still good food, but the worst out of all Slams.”
Kasatkina: “Worse than Paris?”
Saville: “Actually I think so. In Paris, well there’s no sushi. The sushi in Paris is better.”
Kasatkina followed up with a question about the grass, “How are the courts here?”
Saville responded, “Hmm, I mean it’s…the grass was high. I mean it’s windy, it’s slow, high.”
Wimbledon increased the combined singles prize pot for the main draw and qualifying this year by over 9%, but the most significant increase from this went to champions Sinner and Swiatek, who took home £3million each.
This is something that Saville appeared particularly passionate about, claiming that all players would want more of the increase in prize money to go to players in the first round.
“Did you know the prize money they increased by 7% or whatever, but it really is only five because they increase the winners prize money,” said Saville. “So only winner gets 7% increase. Because it’s more about headlines, ‘Oh now our champion makes more prize money than every other Grand Slam winner’.
“Every tennis player would agree that you get more prize money in the lower rounds, every tennis player would sign up for it. I mean no-one is guaranteed to win it.”
WimbledonWFSFQFR16R32R64R1282024£2,700,000£1,400,00£715,000£375,000£226,000£143000£93,000£60,0002025£3,000,000£1,520,000£775,000£400,000£240,000£152,000£99,000£66,000
Saville is not the only player who was frustrated by the way that players were treated in Wimbledon qualifying, with another Australian Arina Rodionova also criticising the event.
Rodionova, who was knocked out in the second round of qualifying, was also critical of the courts, and she also called out the general facilities and lack of equipment.
Rodionova said, “The grass is so slow here, everyone is like breaking each other oh my god.”
Kasatkina added: “It doesn’t look bad, I mean the whole facilities looks pretty good actually.”
Rodionova: “The problem is that if you want to go to the WTA office it’s about 10 minutes that way. Physio is like 500 metres, so you go that way there to the right and to the right (pointing). Gym, I don’t know, I haven’t seen but from what I heard it’s there…Yeah, but it’s so far like if you want to go grab ice also like that way. It’s just like…”
Kasatkina: “Not convenient.”
Rodionova: “No, locker rooms also like that way kind of like the gym area…Food is the same. So there’s been no changes for the past 15 years. So they like the traditions and consistency at Wimbledon, so they still use the same chickens I think from the same family for the past 15 years (laughs).”
Rodionova continued, “Also there’s no f—— air conditioning anywhere. It’s so, like on Saturday it was like 30 degrees (Celsius). I thought we’re all going to die here, because you don’t have a place where you can actually sit. Like locker rooms, oh my god.
“But actually this place is pretty bad. And they run out of everything. They’re like, ‘Oh we’re like out of balls’. I’m like, ‘I’m sorry. Well you do know there’s a Grand Slam going on right? I need to practice’. They’re like water bottles, they’re like, ‘Oh come back, we’re waiting for a shipment it’s not there yet’. I’m like, ‘Did you not know that you have a tournament going on?’.”
Kasatkina: “Are you allowed on the main site?”
Rodionova: “I feel like I’m not even allowed in half of the places here.”
The one thing that Rodionova did feel was an improvement was the electronic line calling, which was a big issue at Wimbledon this year.
Why do Wimbledon host qualifying away from the main site?
Wimbledon still remains as the only major tournament not to have qualifying on site, with that begging the question as to why that is the case.
Grass being a live surface means that the courts need to be protected, and an extra week of tennis would be too damaging to the current courts at SW19.
However, Wimbledon are currently in the process of trying to expand and have revealed their hopes to have qualifying on the main site in the early 2030s.
Wimbledon’s plans have been strongly contested, and it appears to be a long way off for players like Saville and Rodionova to get the changes they want.