Here Jannik Sinner, the world’s No. 1 ranked male tennis player, had the stage to himself on the eve of Wimbledon.
Since before last month’s French Open, Sinner had volunteered to be one of the faces of the players’ protest (if you can really call it that) over the percentage of Grand Slam tournament revenue that goes to prize money. So, as Wimbledon’s defending champion, you would think that the pre-tournament press conference would be the perfect opportunity for Sinner to slam his fist on the table and talk about how unfairly the players are being treated and the next steps if they don’t get the results they want.
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And when the subject inevitably came up on Saturday, Sinner emerged even smaller than he was when he collapsed from two sets in the Paris heat at Roland Garros last month.
“I think we’ve talked enough about this at this point,” Sinner told reporters. “The Grand Slams know what we want, so we’ll see how it goes.
“I’m here now to talk about tennis.”
That’s a powerful protest you went there, Yanik.
As Wimbledon gets underway on Monday, the hilarity of top tennis players from the ATP and WTA competing for more prize money will once again be part of the conversation. That was the case in Paris, and it is promised to be held in New York when the US Open opens in August.
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Do the players deserve more? You could argue that they are. Despite Wimbledon increasing its prize pool by 20 percent from last year (singles winners receive about $4.75 million in prize money, first-round losers’ prize money drops to about $105,000), it’s still a few percent short of the total earnings sought by the top 10 players on both tours last year.
Jannik Sinner is aiming to defend his Wimbledon championship, his first Grand Slam win of the year.
(Adrienne Dennis, via Getty Images)
In a letter to the four major tournaments last September, they said they wanted to spend 16% of their total revenue on prize money in 2026, rising to 22% by 2030. This may or may not be a reasonable request. But considering how much of a money-printing machine the Slams have become (try buying a ticket to Arthur Ashe Stadium this year without worrying about being charged $23 for a Honey Deuce cocktail), it’s understandable why the players think they deserve a bigger slice of the pie.
But as always with tennis players, it comes down to what they are willing to sacrifice.
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Imagine a world where Sinner showed up on Saturday and instead of making fun of himself when the topic of prize money came up, he threatened to boycott the tournament unless Wimbledon met his demands in 2027. What kind of shock did it have, not just across the grounds of the All England Club, but throughout the sporting world?
Perhaps other top male athletes would be bold enough to join him. Imagine being pressured to bow to demands from the BBC, ESPN and other Wimbledon key financial players. That’s a statement. it is It’s a protest.
But here lies the ultimate advantage of Grand Slam tournaments. That is, they know it will never happen. Of course, this is not the case with this generation of siled millionaires who have spent their lives training to chase Grand Slam titles and win in relatively narrow career windows. People like Sinner aren’t just trying to collect trophies, they’re chasing history. Boycotting Wimbledon even once would be costly, which is why I can’t believe he would boycott it.
Especially if he doesn’t even want to talk about it before tennis’ biggest event.
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That doesn’t mean the players aren’t doing anything. At both Roland Garros and Wimbledon, players have limited media obligations as a means of protest. That may seem like a small thing on the surface, but it’s a huge blow to TV broadcasters who have spent millions on broadcast rights fees but aren’t getting as much player access as they paid for. At Wimbledon, players who signed the protest will be limited to a total of 15 minutes of post-match media availability during the first week of the tournament.
It’s worth noting that Larry Scott, yes, the same Larry Scott who led the Pac-12 into oblivion, is the consultant putting this project together. But before his involvement in university sports, Scott was a highly regarded commissioner of the WTA, and played a key role in the campaign to pressure both Wimbledon and Roland Garros to give the Australian Open and US Open equal prize money for men and women.
In this world, Scott knows what levers to push and the difficulty of aligning the stars of individual sports for something. It’s certainly more difficult than before.
In the early days of professional tennis, players were often willing to make sacrifices for the greater good if necessary. Billie Jean King threatened to boycott the 1973 US Open if it did not provide equal prize money. Also in 1973, 12 of the 16 men’s seeded teams boycotted Wimbledon in protest of the tournament supporting the suspension of Niki Pilic by Yugoslav authorities over Pilic’s decision to play the tournament for money rather than represent his country in Davis Cup matches. In 1974, Jimmy Connors opted to sign with World Team Tennis, causing a suspension from the French Open, the only Grand Slam he did not win that year.
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In both cases, player power won out in the long run, paving the way for players like Sinner to earn $65 million in prize money by his 25th birthday.
But while there is that level of financial cushion for top players, there are significant structural barriers to organizing in a way that makes the players truly feel threatened by the Grand Slams, not to mention the excessively heightened sponsorship obligations around the Grand Slams.
Even if they strongly believe that players should have access to more money from slam tournaments, the only ones who actually need it are those ranked outside the top 100. These are the guys who could lose in the first round of the U.S. Open and still make more money than the rest of the year combined. But will players like Sinner and Aryna Sabalenka miss out on competitions for their lower-ranked colleagues? Be real.
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Given that reality, Sinner’s decision to pass up an opportunity to talk to his players on Saturday about what they want and why they deserve it suggests that the players may not understand what it takes to fight this fight, even if they are serious about it in the first place.
It’s easy to see why Sinner wants to spend the next two weeks focused on defending his Wimbledon title. However, throughout the history of sports, disputes between labor and management have been settled using leverage. What’s the point of having it if you don’t want to use it?
