{"id":729824,"date":"2026-06-27T20:16:22","date_gmt":"2026-06-27T20:16:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/729824\/"},"modified":"2026-06-27T20:16:22","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T20:16:22","slug":"sinner-and-sabalenka-lead-players-protests-at-wimbledon-over-prize-money-share-wimbledon-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/729824\/","title":{"rendered":"Sinner and Sabalenka lead players\u2019 protests at Wimbledon over prize money share | Wimbledon 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

The world\u2019s leading players were true to their word, or lack of them, at Wimbledon<\/a> on Saturday as they duly limited their media appearances to 15 minutes. It was part of a continued effort in their quest for the grand slam events to give them more prize money as a share of tournament revenue, plus investment in pensions and more money toward player welfare.<\/p>\n

Jannik Sinner and Aryna Sabalenka, the world No 1s, led the way, while Jessica Pegula suggested the protests, which players say will happen<\/a> throughout the first week of the championships, are also likely to continue at the US Open, which takes place in New York in August.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s something we felt was productive and worked well at the French [Open],\u201d Pegula said. \u201cFifteen minutes, some people are like: \u2018Well, what is that going to do?\u2019 Well, we usually spend 90 minutes. It\u2019s an easy way to get players to become united when you tell them they don\u2019t have to do media. They [say]: \u2018Sure, I\u2019ll sign up for that less obligation.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

After the protests at the French Open<\/a>, Wimbledon reacted by increasing its prize money for this year\u2019s event by 20%<\/a> to \u00a364.2m. The players, who are being advised by Larry Scott, the former CEO of the WTA Tour, claim that equates to just over 14% of the All England Club\u2019s revenue, based on 2025-26 predictions.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re very grateful that one of the [slams] has raised the prize money, but it\u2019s not really answering the questions we\u2019ve been asking,\u201d Pegula said. \u201cI don\u2019t know if the point\u2019s just not getting across. We\u2019ll see how it progresses over the next couple of weeks and then going into the next slam, which is the US Open. I think we\u2019ll get a good grasp about where we\u2019re really standing with the slams.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jannik Sinner conducted a normal-length press conference before the start of the tournament. Photograph: Cameron Spencer\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

While the players were largely united in their message, the way they went about it was a bit chaotic. Sinner conducted a normal-length press conference of about 10 minutes, saying it\u2019s \u201cnot only about the money\u201d. Sabalenka cut her press conference short. \u201cIf you look at the prize money over the last 10 years [as a share of revenue], it\u2019s stayed the same,\u201d she said, adding that she hoped they never have to do it again.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do it for the tour, we don\u2019t do it for ourselves. We do it for the rest of the players who are suffering to even hire a coach. It\u2019s not an easy life for players who are lower in the ranking. So we do it for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

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As in Paris, Novak Djokovic was not part of the protest. The 24-time grand slam champion led the prize money debate for many years, but has stepped away from the current protests. Wimbledon said last week it was disappointed by the action, reiterating that share of revenue does not fully take into account the money it puts back into tennis in the UK.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The world\u2019s leading players were true to their word, or lack of them, at Wimbledon on Saturday as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":729825,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428],"class_list":["post-729824","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\/729824","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=729824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729824\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/729825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=729824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=729824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=729824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}