{"id":516472,"date":"2026-06-24T19:51:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T19:51:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/516472\/"},"modified":"2026-06-24T19:51:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T19:51:11","slug":"wimbledon-2026-players-to-expand-prize-money-protests-despite-20-increase","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/516472\/","title":{"rendered":"Wimbledon 2026: Players to expand prize money protests despite 20% increase"},"content":{"rendered":"

Leading tennis players will expand their prize money protest at Wimbledon – despite a 20% increase<\/a> in this year’s pot.<\/p>\n

Some players limited pre-tournament media to 15 minutes<\/a> at the recent French Open, but will go a step further at Wimbledon.<\/p>\n

They will not only limit the time they offer at the forthcoming media weekend, but are also planning to restrict post-match appearances to 15 minutes throughout the first week of the Championships, which start on Monday.<\/p>\n

The 15-minute limit is meant to symbolise the 15% of revenue which – broadly speaking – the Grand Slams allocate to prize money.<\/p>\n

Representatives of the players say the decision was taken “following detailed consultation with players across both tours”.<\/p>\n

In Paris, women’s world number one Aryna Sabalenka cut short her pre-tournament press conference, while players like Jannik Sinner and Iga Swiatek also followed the ‘work to rule’ directive.<\/p>\n

But Novak Djokovic, who has regularly spoken out on behalf of players’ rights, did not take part in the action.<\/p>\n

The All England Club (AELTC) said it is “surprised and disappointed” by the move.<\/p>\n

“Wimbledon puts the players at the heart of all our decisions and we invest significantly in them every year,” it said.<\/p>\n

“This is alongside investing hundreds of millions of pounds in upgrades to our player facilities as part of a three-year transformation to create a world class player performance environment.”<\/p>\n

Earlier this month the players welcomed Wimbledon’s 20% increase as a “genuine and significant step forward”.<\/p>\n

The players issued a statement describing the announcement as a “meaningful statement of intent” – while also pointing out it still does not equate to the 16% of tournament revenue they are requesting from all Grand Slams this year.<\/p>\n

The total prize fund at this year’s championships will be \u00a364.2m, following the largest annual increase in the event’s history. <\/p>\n

The singles’ champions will each take home \u00a33.6m with first-round losers paid \u00a380,000.<\/p>\n

But the overall fund is still about \u00a37m short of what the players had been hoping for.<\/p>\n

“We don’t look at percentages, we don’t actually believe that is the right metric,” Deborah Jevans, the AELTC chair, told BBC Sport earlier this month.<\/p>\n

“It is one metric that is based purely on revenue and doesn’t take into account any costs and we cannot run a business in that way.<\/p>\n

“We have expenses – we have spoken about infrastructure and investment in grass court tennis.<\/p>\n

“You cannot run a sustainable business, and we have nearly been around for 150 years, just by looking at revenue. That is just plainly wrong.”<\/p>\n

As well as campaigning for the Slams to link prize money to tournament revenue, players are also asking for contributions to their benefit pool and a greater say in how the events are run.<\/p>\n

The players say they have not had a “substantive response” from Wimbledon on these two issues.<\/p>\n

The AELTC disputes that, and says it contacted players at the end of last year to propose talks on establishing a player council, which could then discuss the issue of benefits. <\/p>\n

The offer was rejected by the players.<\/p>\n

Sources at the AELTC say they were anticipating talks about the players\u2019 concerns at the end of the championships, although they are not the only organisation involved in the dispute.<\/p>\n

The increase in prize money at the French Open was 9.5%, and player representatives say they expect the French Tennis Federation to present proposals on how to narrow the gap between the two sides during the Wimbledon fortnight. <\/p>\n

There will also be discussions with executives from the US Tennis Association as they finalise their prize money offer for the US Open, which begins on 30 August.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Leading tennis players will expand their prize money protest at Wimbledon – despite a 20% increase in this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":516473,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-516472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=516472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516472\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/516473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=516472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=516472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=516472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}