The WTA last week announced a brand new calendar and equal prize money in the future with ATP events at all joint 500 and 1000 events. By 2033 all events, but by 2027 all combined 1000 events will have the same prize money. The WTA 1000 level tournaments (increasing to a total of 10) include several transitioning to two weeks in length and, with that, larger draw sizes: Rome (2023), Madrid and Beijing (2024), and Cincinnati and Toronto/Montreal (2025), in addition to the existing Indian Wells and Miami competitions. The additional WTA 1000 events will be one-week events in Doha, Dubai, and a yet-to-be-named event.
The announcement comes at the back of the organization announcing a brand new calendar to take effect from 2024. For a long time on the WTA, some WTA 1000 events carried the same number of points and regulations as the mandatory ATP 1000 events on the men’s tour. There were however separate 1000 events with less points on offer and were technically non-mandatory.
While the announcement for equal status and points for all ten WTA 1000 events comes as welcome development, the prize money announcement comes out having not yet addressed one of the major issues that has made the lack of equal prize money on tour an ongoing issue: the ATP and WTA are separately run organizations with different levels of revenue generation–ticket sales, sponsorship deals, amongst others–all of which ultimately goes into how much they are able to pay their players on tour.
Just last week, the Daily Mail broke the news that the ATP and the Saudi Public Investment Fund were in negotiations about a possible investment deal. Should that negotiate become successful, it will no doubt have a major impact on how much the ATP will be able to offer on the men’s tour moving forward. The WTA setting the prize money on offer on the ATP as benchmark points to them having already addressed this question of revenue.
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