This year’s US Open prize money record will be beaten in the first Slam of next year.
Exactly a month after the end of the 2017’s US Open, which took the spotlight because of a more than 50,000,000 $ prize money, increased by 9% referring to 2016, it’s been confirmed that next year’s Australian Open, the first of the season, is set to beat this amazing record.
The tournament director Craig Tiley confirmed his intention to raise the prize money of his Slam, up to $55,000,000. This would set a new world record and an increase of 10% from last year, and it would also mean that the Australian federation has improved the prize money 25% if we consider the 2016 Slam, which had “only” a 40 million dollar purse.
How much will the winners earn?
The amount of money that winners of Men and Women’s Singles tournaments will receive has changed. The record belonged to this year’s US Open where Rafael Nadal and Sloane Stephens got 3.7 million dollars in their pocket.
In Melbourne, winners will receive a record 4.7 million dollars, more than what champions like Bjorn Borg, just to give an example, earned throughout all their career.
Is this a good thing for tennis?
In this sport there has always been a deep discussion on whether it was good or not to augment the prize money of each tournament, and the progress has always been slow compared to other sports. Few years ago the South African Ferreira proposed to players to boycott the ATP in order to have a reasonable prize money in every tournament and even if regular ATP players couldn’t boycott tournaments, this challenge has been somehow accepted. If we take a look back up to 20 years we can see that the prize money of every tournament has been doubled, while for the equality of money among men and women we had to wait until few years ago.
Increasing the prize money is of course a positive thing for every tournament because it shows the economic rewards of professional tennis that can attract players and also give an importance to single tournaments, especially Grand Slams who are the ones with the biggest prize money. It’s not easy to arrive at this level and that’s why players have the equal right to earn more, just like in other sports. Moving forward, the financial rewards for pro tennis players at the top of their game should continue to grow, while an increase in Grand Slam prize money helps journeyman and women who make the main draw as well.
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