{"id":649599,"date":"2026-05-05T15:51:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T15:51:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/649599\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T15:51:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T15:51:10","slug":"tennis-stars-could-boycott-grand-slams-in-prize-money-dispute-gauff-and-sabalenka-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/649599\/","title":{"rendered":"Tennis stars could boycott Grand Slams in prize money dispute, Gauff and Sabalenka say"},"content":{"rendered":"

ROME \u2014 More tennis stars have echoed Aryna Sabalenka<\/a>\u2019s view that they will eventually boycott Grand Slams due to disputes over prize money<\/a> and player representation.<\/p>\n

Over the weekend, a group of leading ATP and WTA players that has been pressuring the Slams for more than a year expressed \u201ccollective disappointment\u201d at this year\u2019s French Open prize money<\/a>, because of the overall share of the tournament\u2019s revenue it represents.<\/p>\n

During a news conference Tuesday ahead of the Italian Open, Sabalenka said \u201cat some point we will boycott\u201d the four biggest tournaments in the sport.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like that\u2019s going to be the only way to kind of, like, fight for our rights,\u201d the 28-year-old Belarusian said.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s see how far we can get. If it\u2019s going to take players for boycott. I feel like nowadays, we girls can easily get together and go for this because some of the things I feel like it\u2019s really unfair to the players. I think at some point it\u2019s going to get to this.\u201d<\/p>\n

The organizers of Wimbledon and the Australian, French and U.S. Opens were not immediately available for comment on Sabalenka\u2019s statement.<\/p>\n

Later that day, world No. 4 Coco Gauff said that she agreed with Sabalenka\u2019s view, as did Australian Open champion Elena Rybakina.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor all of us showing up, everyone\u2019s going to act as normal. I definitely agree with her on that standpoint,\u201d Gauff said in a news conference.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think a few other players agree, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

WNBA players<\/a> recently held out of negotiations for 17 months to achieve nearly 20 percent of their league\u2019s revenue, an example which Gauff cited.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf everyone were to move as one and collaborate, yeah, I can 100-percent see that,\u201d Gauff said of a possible boycott.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not about me. It\u2019s about the future of our sport and the current players who aren\u2019t getting as much benefits as even some of the top players are getting, when it comes to like sponsorship and things like that. We\u2019re making money off court.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you look at the 50 to 100, 50 to 200, how much money each Slam makes, it\u2019s kind of unfortunate where the 200 best tennis players are living paycheck to paycheck, whereas other sports it\u2019s not even a discussion.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we all collectively agree, then yes. \u2026 I think that is something us as players have to talk amongst ourselves and do it, and talk within each other and decide what\u2019s best. But we definitely can move more as a collective.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like we\u2019re doing well, though. The progress we made since last year to now, just having the top 10 all agree on something, is I think the first that\u2019s happened in our sport in a long time. I do think there\u2019s progress, but we can do more, for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

The French Open\u2019s 2026 prize pool is up by 9.5 percent from 2025, to a total of \u20ac61.7 million ($72.3 million). This will come in at 15 percent of the French Open\u2019s projected revenue, according to the group\u2019s estimates. That\u2019s a proportion the players deem to be well below what they want from the four majors.<\/p>\n

Joint ATP and WTA Tour events award 22 percent of revenue to the players, while many U.S. team sports set an even higher mark, with players in the NFL, NBA and MLB receiving close to 50 percent of league revenues.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs Roland Garros looks to post record revenues, players are therefore receiving a declining share of the value they help create,\u201d a statement circulated by the player group said. It was attributed to the 20 signatories of an initial letter sent to the four majors in March 2025, including Sabalenka, Jannik Sinner, Carlos Alcaraz and Coco Gauff.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile other major international sports are modernising governance, aligning stakeholders, and building long-term value, the Grand Slams remain resistant to change. The absence of player consultation and the continued lack of investment in player welfare reflect a system that does not adequately represent the interests of those who are central to the sport\u2019s success.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a statement sent to\u00a0The Athletic following the players\u2019 latest communication, the French Tennis Federation (FFT) said it \u201cremains fully committed to ongoing dialogue with all stakeholders in global tennis, including speaking directly with individual players. It will continue working to improve overall player conditions, in line with its responsibilities and its model.\u201d<\/p>\n

The group of players sent their first letter to the Slams in March last year, followed by a second in July, pushing for three key areas of reform: prize money to represent a greater proportion of revenues; contributions to player welfare, and greater consultation and representation, with the formation of a Grand Slam Player Council.<\/p>\n

Despite meetings with the tournaments during last year\u2019s majors, progress has been elusive, and players have been reticent to discuss forming a council before discussions over prize money have met their expectations.<\/p>\n

Earlier on Tuesday, the world No. 3 and six-time Grand Slam champion Iga \u015awi\u0105tek said she hadn\u2019t heard of a possible boycott, describing it as an \u201cextreme\u201d option, but she pointed too to the power of the player collective.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we have good communication between us,\u201d \u015awi\u0105tek said in a news conference. \u201cSometimes if it\u2019s an important topic, we are ready to speak together.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the most important thing honestly is to have proper communication and discussions with the governing bodies so we have some space to talk and maybe negotiate. Hopefully before Roland Garros there\u2019s going to be (an) opportunity to have these types of meetings and we\u2019ll see how they go.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ben Shelton, the American world No. 6, said in an interview Tuesday that \u201cit\u2019s important for us players that we at least get a seat at the table to talk about these things. That\u2019s something that\u2019s been lacking in our sport, especially from the Slams and probably the part that makes us the most disappointed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shelton said he did not know about the possibility of a boycott.<\/p>\n

There is precedent for players boycotting Grand Slams. In 1973, 81 male players declined to play that year\u2019s Wimbledon in solidarity with Nikola Pili\u0107. Pili\u0107 had been barred from the tournament by the International Lawn Tennis Federation (now the I.T.F., the world governing body of tennis that runs all the Grand Slam tournaments) for refusing to play a Davis Cup match for his native Yugoslavia a month earlier. Billie Jean King suggested she would boycott the same year\u2019s U.S. Open if it did not award equal prize money.<\/p>\n

The French Open begins Sunday May 24, while the Italian Open, the last big warm-up for Roland Garros, ends Sunday May 17.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ROME \u2014 More tennis stars have echoed Aryna Sabalenka\u2019s view that they will eventually boycott Grand Slams due…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":649600,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,569,82,575,593],"class_list":["post-649599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-culture","tag-sports","tag-sports-business","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=649599"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649599\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/649600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=649599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=649599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=649599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}