The All-England Club announced on the 20th April 2010 the Wimbledon men’s and ladies’ singles champions will each receive £1m prize money – the highest amount ever offered for the tournament. The sum represents a substantial increase over £150,000 on the previous year. In 2006, the men’s champion took home £655,000, so that the seven-figure prize of 2010 represents an increase of over 50% in just five years.
Prize money at Wimbledon has lagged behind the other so-called Grand Slams in recent years and 2010 will be the first year in which the tournament prize money is roughly equal for the four competitions. The singles champions at the US Open will receive $1.6m apiece, those at the Australian Open A$2.1m and the French Open winners $1.4m.
Prize money has also increased in the men’s and women’s doubles competitions. The winners of the men’s doubles will share £240,000 and the winners of the women’s doubles £230,000. The prize money for the mixed doubles remains unchanged, with the winning pair receiving £92,000. Total prize money for the championships has increased by 9.4% since 2009, with the increase for the singles champions being highest at 17.6%.
The reason given by the All-England Club for such a significant increase was that it would help the comptition maintain its competitive edge. The organisation’s chairman, Tim Phillips, described it as ‘a level of prize money which is both appropriate to the prestige of the event and which gives the players full and fair reward’.
The Wimbledon Tennis Championships
Wimbledon is widely regarded as the most prestigious tennis tournament in the world. The oldest of the four Grand Slam tournaments, it is the only one to be played on grass. First played in 1877, it precedes the US Open by four years, the French Open by 14 years and the Australian Open by 28 years. It attracts over 50,000 tennis fans during the fortnight of the championships.
Played in July, Wimbledon is the third of the grand slams to be played in the calendar year. The formality and traditions of the club, such as its insistence on predominantly white clothing for the players and the request for players to curtsey to the Royal Box (discontinued for all except the Queen and Prince Philip in 2003) further distinguish it from the other Grand Slams.
The Equal Prize Money Controversy
Until 2007, female players at Wimbledon received less prize money than their male equivalents. The decision had previously been defended on the basis that women played only the best of three sets in their matches, while men played best of five. Both sexes play the same number of matches. However, the gap between the rewards for the men and women narrowed gradually over the years: in 1968 the ladies champion received less than half the prize money of the men’s.
In fact, although Wimbledon had long been seen as the last bastion of unequal pay, this was not fully the case. Although the men’s and women’s champions at the US Open had received equal prize money since 1973, the Australian Open didn’t follow suit until 2000. Although the French Open offered equal prize money in 2006 it lagged behind the other three in offering equal prize money to all men and women players.
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