Poland’s Iga Swiatek, who dominates women’s tennis, called on Wednesday for equal prize money between men and women in ATP and WTA tournaments, as is already the case for Grand Slam tournaments. The situation in tennis “is better than in most other sports but there are still things to do regarding the equality of prize money in WTA tournaments compared to those of the ATP”, she explained during a press conference on the eve of his entry into the WTA 1000 in Madrid. She will face the Austrian Julia Grabher.
The Polish, defending champion at Roland Garros and the US Open, won the WTA 500 tournament in Stuttgart last week, earning just over 100,000 euros. The Spaniard Carlos Alcaraz, world No.2, pocketed a check for 475,000 euros for his victory at the ATP 500 tournament in Barcelona. “The Grand Slams are already at the same level, it’s good, but it would be good if the WTA focused on this subject, but I don’t want to say more because it’s a lot of business and sometimes politics”, a added Swiatek.
“I can only say that it would be good for our sport to be egalitarian, especially because we do pretty much the same job,” she insisted. Admitting that men’s tennis can be “more beautiful to see because players can do more things by being stronger physically and biologically”, Swiatek pointed out that women’s tennis is “more consistent in terms of play” and that it there were “sometimes more emotions because we are women and we show a little more emotion”.
The US Open was the first Grand Slam tournament to offer in 1973 an equal prize pool between men and women. It took until 2001 for the Australian Open to follow the American example, then 2007 with Roland-Garros and Wimbledon.
