There was no immediate response to the AELTC’s announcement from Scott’s side on Wednesday. So it is too early to say whether the French Open’s media boycott – during which some leading players restricted their pre-tournament interviews to 15 minutes as a way of highlighting that 15 per cent figure – will be repeated when Wimbledon opens its gates in a fortnight’s time.
However, the players’ representatives are understood to be disappointed – on a revenue-share basis – with this latest pay award. Within minutes of the figures being released, insiders suggested that the 2026 prize-money package is only marginally higher than the French Open’s, and still stands below Wimbledon’s own peak in 2015 as a percentage of total revenue.
As ever in the administrative shambles that is professional tennis, the picture is complicated by the number of organisations involved. One of these organisations is the Professional Tennis Players’ Association (PTPA), which brought a controversial class action against the structure of the whole tour in March last year.
For the moment, it seems that most high-ranking players have rejected the more radical PTPA approach and prefer to work within the system, through Scott. It is more likely to be those who struggle to break even, the doubles specialists and lower-ranked singles players who have little to lose, who want to blow the whole game open through the legal challenge.
Only one thing really unites all the players: they want more money.
As Debbie Jevans, the All England Club’s chair, pointed out during a media briefing on Thursday: “Until recently, the ATP and WTA were their [the players’] representatives. We’ve now received letters from Larry, representing the top 10, and of course the PTPA have their class action. So I think that is something the players should absolutely be considering: of course it would always be easier to have one direct communication.”