Thu, February 05, 2026
Leading professionals turn down opportunity to have greater say in management of major tennis championships, claiming they are consistently ignored
The world’s top 10 male and female tennis players have turned down an offer from three out of four of the Grand Slams – with the Australian Open excluded - to establish a player council. The players rejected Wimbledon, the French Open and US Open’s attempt to meet in order to discuss the player council during the Indian Wells Masters in March, claiming that organisers consistently ignore demands on pay and welfare regardless of discussions.
Tennis Australia, which manages the Australian Open, has sided with the Professional Tennis Players Association, which is suing the remaining Grand Slams over restrictive practices such as suppressing prize money, forcing players into competing in sanctioned events through ranking rules and hindering commercial rights, for example. Players have been vocal about greater contributions into pension, healthcare and maternity rights as well, though they claim these demands have also been consistently dismissed.
Part of the athletes’ correspondence read: “Before committing to another meeting, it would be more productive for the grand slams to provide substantive responses, individually or collectively, to the specific proposals the players have put forward regarding prize money at a fair share of grand slam revenues, and player health, welfare, and benefits contributions…
While the players recognise that governance structures can play an important role, they are concerned that prioritising council formation over the core economic issues risks becoming a process discussion that delays rather than advances meaningful progress.”
Leading players, such as this year’s men’s Australian Open champion, Carlos Alcaraz, Jannik Sinner, Aryna Sabalenka and Coco Gauff have previously demanded all four Grand Slams to increase prize money funds to 22% of revenue - per tournament - by 2030, which would be in alignment with the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) and Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) Tours.
Alcaraz won AUS$2.8 million after tax (around £1.43 million) out of a record high Australian Open prize fund of AUS$85 million. The amount of tax required to be paid on tennis prize money depends solely on the location in which they are playing in, with different laws in place.
This is the second highest award after the US Open but is still only around 16% of the tournament’s revenue. The £50 million total prize fund at Wimbledon last year was 12.3% of its £406.5m revenue, according to The Guardian.
Other issues also arose at these year’s Australian Open after extra cameras were installed without warning in previously private areas where players could warm up and cool down. There are also talks of changing the Australian Open format to best-of-five-set matches for women from the quarter final which players had not been made aware of.
