Wimbledon this year may be deprived of ranking points, but the players will be taking home more money than ever before.
The All England Club announced on Thursday that first round singles losers will earn £50,000 and the champions £2million each as part of a record overall prize pot of £40.35m. That represents an 11.1 per cent increase on last year, which was still affected by the pandemic.
t is a 5.4 per cent increase on 2019, the last year that The Championships was held before full capacity crowds.
There has certainly not been any reduction to take into account that this year’s tournament has been stripped of ranking status. That was the sanction placed by the ATP and WTA Tours for Wimbledon banning players from Russia and Belarus.
The size of the purse will ensure that other no-shows will be small to non-existent, despite this year’s edition not counting towards their rankings, unless there is an unexpected U-turn from the tours.
The biggest rise will go to those playing in the qualifying event, a whopping 26 per cent up on last year, which will persuade the rank-and-file to travel to London and try their luck.
Even the most humble qualifier who loses in the first round of the preliminaries will get £11,000.
Credit: dailymail.co.uk
