WTA No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka on Saturday at Wimbledon “defended a prize-money protest by leading players” despite the tournament “increasing its pot by a record 20% this year.” Players are “demanding a bigger slice of the Grand Slam pie and improved player welfare.” Wimbledon’s $84M pot this year equates to about 15% of the tournament’s revenue, short of the 16% -- about $92M -- the players sought. Sabalenka said, “It’s a great start they raise the prize money. It’s an amazing start. If you look over the last 10 years, if you compare the prize money to 2016, it’s kind of like the same (as a percentage) because it went down.” She added, “I really hope we can finally get to the table and really get it done, come to a conclusion that everyone’s going to be happy with. Hopefully we’ll never have to do it again” (REUTERS, 6/27).
WTA No. 4 Jessica Pegula, looking ahead to the U.S. Open, said, “We’ll see how it progresses. ... We’ll kind of get a good grasp about where we’re really standing with the Slams and see what we can get out of that with talking to them” (AP, 6/27).
