Top tennis players target U.S. Open’s star-studded mixed doubles event in prize money push

With the start of the year’s final Grand Slam a little more than a month away, the group of top-20 players pushing for more prize money and support at the sport’s biggest tournaments is targeting the U.S. Open’s shiniest new toy: The star-studded mixed doubles tournament which now underpins its increasingly lucrative Fan Week.

The USTA’s leaders are working to head off what could amount to an embarrassing partial boycott of an event for which it has already sold thousands of high-priced tickets. So far, the efforts have not gone far enough to satisfy the player group, according to people briefed on the talks who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to speak freely about a sensitive matter.

On July 4 in London, leaders of the group, including Jessica Pegula, met with Brian Vahaly, the chairman of the U.S. Tennis Association, which owns and operates the U.S. Open, and Eric Butorac, the new tournament director, to discuss the players’ demands for a higher proportion of tournament revenues as prize money and a greater say in the tournament’s scheduling and operations. Others in the group include Coco Gauff, Aryna Sabalenka, Ben Shelton and Elena Rybakina.

According to two people briefed on those discussions, including a spokesperson for the USTA who confirmed details of the meeting, both sides came away with the sense that they had made progress. However, the USTA did not go far enough for the top players to withdraw their threat to skip the mixed doubles tournament and the charity exhibitions, which the USTA organizes in the increasingly frenzied week ahead of the main-draw competition at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Centre in New York.

Prize money continues to be the main hangup. Players are seeking a guaranteed share of total revenues. So far, tournament organizers have not committed to a revenue sharing formula.

Jannik Sinner, the world No. 1 in men’s singles, is among those considering not playing in the mixed doubles tournament under the current financial arrangement. Other top players are prepared to line up behind him, a sentiment that has been relayed to Vahaly and Butorac and made its way to Craig Tiley, who took over as chief executive of the USTA on Monday.

Tiley was previously the chief executive of Tennis Australia, the owner and organizer of the Australian Open, where he developed a reputation as one of the most player-friendly executives in the sport. However, he declined to engage with the top players on the revenue sharing issue last year.

A press release announcing the beginning of Tiley’s tenure made no reference to what is undoubtedly one of the major priorities of his first weeks on the job.

“The USTA has created a great platform to inspire further growth in tennis participation,” Tiley said in a statement announcing his start. “We want to work with everyone within the tennis family to grow the sport beyond what anyone thought possible.”

Sinner did not play the event last year, after retiring from the Cincinnati Open final, played just before it, due to illness. He had been in line to partner Kateřina Siniaková, the world No. 1 in women’s doubles. The USTA is yet to release an initial entry list, for the event, last year won by top doubles players Andrea Vavassori and Sara Errani of Italy.

The players came together more than a year ago and have been working with Larry Scott, a longtime sports executive and the former leader of the WTA Tour. Through a series of latters and meetings, they have asked each of the Grand Slams to create separate player councils that have input on matters like scheduling, to contribute $4 million annually to player pension and health care, and to guarantee prize money of at least 16 percent of tournament revenues, rising to 22 percent by 2030.

According to a person briefed on the meeting between leaders of the player group and the USTA, Vahaly and Butorac said the USTA was willing to move ahead with the creation of a players’ advisory council and contribute to player pensions and welfare, though it did not commit to a specific amount.

According to the people, Vahaly and Butorac also said the U.S. Open planned to announce a significant increase in prize money that would maintain its position as the most lucrative of the Grand Slams. If the increase keeps pace with last year at the U.S. Open and the recent increase at Wimbledon, prize money will rise to at least $100 million.

While the players group was said to have appreciated the progress, for now it is planning to maintain its insistence on a revenue-sharing plan that helps restructure player compensation at the Grand Slams.

Through a representative, Pegula declined to comment on this story. Last month at Wimbledon, she said players were appreciative of the tournament’s decision to increase prize money, “but again, that’s not really answering the questions that we’ve been asking.”

“I don’t know if the point’s just not getting across,” Pegula said during her pre-tournament news conference, which she limited to less than seven minutes instead of the usual 15. “Going into the next Slam, which is the U.S. Open, I think we’ll kind of get a good grasp about like where we’re really standing with the Slams.”

Two days after the meeting with the USTA, the players group had what may be its first true breakthrough during a meeting that included Scott, agents for several of the top players and leaders of Roland Garros, including Stéphane Morel, the chief executive of France’s tennis federation, the FFT, and Amélie Mauresmo, the tournament director.

According to one of the people briefed on the meeting, Roland Garros delivered a concrete proposal on all three points, including a prize-money formula that links player compensation to the tournament’s financial success. Negotiations will continue with Roland Garros, because the figures don’t yet meet the players’ demands. Earlier this year, the French Open increased prize money to $70 million, a 9.5 percent increase from 2025.

Emmanuel Bouscasse, a spokesperson for the the FFT, said new proposals are still being analyzed.

“We continue to engage in constructive discussions with players and their representatives on a number of topics, and we appreciate the positive dialogue that has taken place over the past few months,” Bouscasse said in a statement. “As these discussions remain ongoing, it would be premature to comment further.”

Last year, the U.S. Open raised its prize money 21 percent, to $85 million, compared with $70 million the year before, amid initial requests from players to negotiate a new revenue-sharing model.

In June, the All England Club, which owns and organizes Wimbledon, increased its prize money by 20 percent, to about $86 million.

In response, the player group said it appreciated the gesture but focused again on the absence of a commitment to revenue sharing. The prize money also remained below the percentage of projected total revenues it had asked for, and came without any commitment to player welfare programs.

As a result, most of the top players continued with the protest they had initiated at Roland Garros. They limited their pre-tournament media availability to 15 minutes total for all media, compared with between 60 and 90 minutes in normal years. They also declined to do pre-tournament interviews with the Wimbledon media rightsholders, which in some cases have committed to contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars to televise and stream the event.

Certain top players, including Alex de Minaur, opted out of the media boycott for Wimbledon, citing their appreciation of the prize money increase as a sign of progress.

Players who continued the protest said they did not feel satisfied by what could be a one-off increase. But after saying they would extend the limit on their media availability through the first week of the main draw, they backed off that plan before the tournament had even begun, after talks with AELTC chair Deborah Jevans, tournament director Jamie Baker and board member Tim Henman.

Both the AELTC and FFT have said that they do not believe revenue is the right figure from which to calculate prize money, because it does not account for reinvestment of that revenue into the tournaments and into the wider tennis ecosystem. Vahaly and Butorac said at the London meeting that the USTA could not make any commitments to a revenue-sharing model until Tiley began his tenure as chief executive.

If the U.S. Open does raise its prize money 20 percent, to about $100 million, it’s not clear whether that would get the players to their initial demand for 16 percent of its revenue. In 2024, the most recent year for which revenues are available, the USTA reported $560 million in tournament revenue. Its $85 million prize pool for 2025 amounted to just under 15.2 percent of that figure, but the player group has used actual prize money for a given tournament year as a proportion of hypothetical revenue for the same year in making its arguments.

Revenues for last year’s U.S. Open will not be publicly released until later this year, but the first edition of the new mixed doubles tournament, and the first Sunday start in the tournament’s history (which adds an extra day of ticket sales) added to crowds.

The 2026 tournament has instituted significant ticket price increases, and overall growth in media rights and sponsorship fees may push the tournament’s revenues close to $700 million this year. The organization has said the increased revenue will help cover the costs of an $800 million renovation of Arthur Ashe Stadium and construction of a new training, dining and hospitality center for the players adjacent to the stadium.

This is an example of the reinvestment that the Grand Slams say underpins their current use of revenue and the financial model under which they operate. The player group is pushing for more.

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