PARIS \u2014 Players at the French Open are planning to reduce media appearances ahead of the start of the Grand Slam to complain about their share of the prize money.<\/p>\n
A group already have targeted the upcoming clay-court tournament for reducing players\u2019 share of revenue to an alleged 14.3% \u2014 compared to 22% at other ATP and WTA events.<\/p>\n
Top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka and No.4 Coco Gauff were among leading players who threatened a boycott of the Slams if they don\u2019t start receiving more compensation.<\/p>\n
L\u2019Equipe newspaper reported many players competing at Roland Garros are planning to limit their conversations with reporters to 15 minutes during the traditional pre-tournament media day.<\/p>\n
The French tennis federation (FFT), which organizes the French Open, said in a statement to The Associated Press that it regrets the players\u2019 initiative \u201cwhich penalizes all stakeholders involved in the tournament: the media, broadcasters, federation staff and the entire tennis community that enthusiastically follows each edition of Roland Garros.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sabalenka and fellow No. 1 Jannik Sinner were among leading players \u2014 most of them ranked in the top 10 \u2014 who issued a statement expressing \u201cdeep disappointment\u201d over French Open prize money.<\/p>\n
The players also are seeking better representation, health options and pensions from the four Grand Slam tournaments: Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon and U.S. Open.<\/p>\n
Roland Garros organizers announced they were increasing overall prize money by about 10% for an overall pot of $72.1 million, with the total amount up over $6 million from last year. But the players said \u201cthe underlying figures tell a very different story,\u201d claiming they will receive a smaller share of tournament revenues.<\/p>\n
The FFT said it will continue to maintain an open dialogue, adding that it proposed a meeting expected to take place with the players and their representatives.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe FFT is ready for direct and constructive discussions on governance issues, with the aim of giving players a greater role in decision-making, contributing to players\u2019 social protection, and evolving the distribution of value, and it put forward several proposals in this direction during the meeting,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n
The players claim their share of Roland Garros revenue has declined from 15.5% in 2024 to 14.9% projected in 2026. They say the event generated almost $460 million in 2025, a 14% year-on-year increase, yet prize money rose by just 5.4%, reducing players\u2019 share of revenue to 14.3%.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith estimated revenues of over $465 million for this year\u2019s tournament, prize money as a percentage of revenue likely still will be less than 15%, far short of the 22% that players have requested to bring the Grand Slams into line with the ATP and WTA Combined 1000 events,\u201d the players said.<\/p>\n
The Australian Open this year increased the players\u2019 compensation by 16%, and the U.S. Open prize money last year went up by 20%.<\/p>\n
The singles champions at Roland Garros will each receive over $3 million, an increase of almost $300,000 compared with 2025.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeyond the prize money, a Grand Slam tournament like Roland Garros offers players exceptional exposure, generating indirect income through sponsorships, partnerships, exhibitions and appearance fees,\u201d the FFT said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis year the French Tennis Federation also chose to direct a significant portion of these increases toward players eliminated in the early rounds of the main draw and qualifying rounds, with increases of more than 11%, in order to better support those who depend most on tournament earnings to finance their season.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PARIS \u2014 Players at the French Open are planning to reduce media appearances ahead of the start of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":656162,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428],"class_list":["post-656161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=656161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656161\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/656162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=656161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=656161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=656161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}