Tennis players plan ‘work-to-rule’ French Open media protest over prize money

The world’s top tennis players are planning to protest over prize money by reducing their media appearances at the French Open as their public battle with the grand slams intensifies.

Players selected to take part in Friday’s opening press conference at Roland Garros will walk out after 15 minutes, symbolising the fact that the slams allocate an average of 15% of their revenues to prize money. The rest of the draw will refuse to conduct additional interviews with the tournament’s main media rights partners, TNT Sports and Eurosport.

A source close to the players said that, after the French Open confirmed this month this year’s prize pot will be €61.7m (£52.6m), locker room talks have led them to respond with what they described as a “work to rule strategy” in Paris, with their off-court activities to be kept to a bare minimum.

The players are understood to have studied the tournament rulebook and concluded they will not be fined as long as they fulfil their contractual obligations to conduct a short flash interview with rights holders after each match.

The leading 20 male and female players, including Novak Djokovic, Jannik Sinner, Aryna Sabalenka and Coco Gauff, have been in dispute with all four grand slams for more than a year. They feel they are given an insufficient share of each tournament’s increasing revenues, while they have also demanded enhanced welfare and pension provisions and a greater say in determining tournament schedules.

After the French Open’s prize money announcement, Sabalenka and Gauff raised the prospect of players boycotting the grand slams during interviews conducted at the Italian Open in Rome, although Iga Swiatek and Emma Raducanu distanced themselves from talk of a strike.

The French Open prize fund has risen by 9.5% this year, with the men’s and women’s winners to receive €2.8m, but the players are unhappy the increase is far more modest as a percentage of tournament revenues. While Roland Garros’s income increased by 14% to €395m last year, prize money rose by 5.4%, reducing players’ share of revenue to 14.3%.

Since the dispute first became public last year the players have been calling on the slams to match the 22% share of revenue paid by the ATP and WTA tours.

The players are being advised by the former ATP tour player and ex-WTA chief executive Larry Scott, who is due to hold talks on Friday with the French tennis federation president, Gilles Moretton, and the Roland Garros tournament director, Amélie Mauresmo.

Meetings with representatives of Wimbledon and the US Open are expected to take place later in the tournament. Wimbledon will soon become the players’ focus with the All England Club due to announce its prize money in the second week of June. While the prize fund will increase from last year’s £53.5m the announcement is unlikely to satisfy the players, who feel they are being cut out of the huge growth in revenues in SW19.

The All England Club’s income from Wimbledon has increased from about £165m in 2015 to more than £420m last year, while the prize money on offer has doubled £26.5m to £53.5m over the same period, a 20% drop in the players’ share of tournament revenues.

The players are understood to be particularly agitated about Wimbledon, as the All England Club is planning to increase capacity by an extra 10,000 spectators each day if its proposed expansion takes place, and protests could take place during this summer’s Championships.

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