Leading tennis players are keeping pressure on the four Grand Slam tournaments over revenue sharing, saying the latest prize-money increase at Roland Garros does not go far enough to address deeper concerns about player compensation and governance.
Roland Garros, which runs from May 24 to June 7 in Paris, has announced a 9.5% increase in prize money for the 2026 edition, bringing the total purse to 61.7 million euros, or about $72.4 million. But several top players, including world No. 1s Jannik Sinner and Aryna Sabalenka, said in a letter published Monday that the increase remains insufficient.
The dispute with the Grand Slam tournaments, the Australian Open, Roland Garros, Wimbledon and the US Open, began in April 2025, when many of the leading ATP and WTA players signed a letter calling for a larger share of tournament revenue.
The players are seeking 22% of Grand Slam revenue, a figure they say would bring the majors closer to the model used at combined ATP and WTA 1000 events.
The players have also called for a welfare fund to support retirement, health care and maternity leave, along with a formal role in decisions that affect them.
At Roland Garros this year, a first-round loss in qualifying will pay at least 24,000 euros, while players who reach the main draw will earn 87,000 euros. The men’s and women’s singles champions will each receive 2.8 million euros, up from 2.5 million euros last year.
French Open organizers have emphasized that a significant portion of the increase is aimed at players who lose in the early rounds of qualifying and the main draw. But the players argue that the issue is not only the size of the prize-money pool, but the percentage of tournament revenue allocated to players.
In their letter, the signatories said Roland Garros generated 395 million euros in revenue in 2025, a 14% increase from the previous year, while prize money rose by only 5.4%. That, they said, reduced the players’ share of revenue to 14.3%.
“With estimated revenue of more than 400 million euros this year, the share of profits allocated to female and male players will likely remain below 15%, far from the 22% they are seeking,” the players said in the letter seen by AFP.
The group said the announcement “does nothing to resolve the structural issues that players have consistently and reasonably raised for the past year,” adding that there had been no meaningful progress on player welfare or a formal consultation mechanism in Grand Slam decision-making.
The letter was signed by several of the sport’s biggest names, including Sinner, Sabalenka, Carlos Alcaraz, Alexander Zverev, Coco Gauff and Iga Swiatek.
The French Tennis Federation defended its approach, noting that prize money has increased 45% since 2019. The FFT said the 2026 increase includes larger gains for players eliminated in the early rounds and qualifying, with some increases above 11%.
The federation also said it remains “fully committed to ongoing dialogue with all stakeholders in world tennis” and available to speak directly with players.
The dispute comes as the clay-court season moves toward its biggest event. The Italian Open begins this week in Rome, followed by Roland Garros later this month. While the sport’s top players will soon shift attention back to competition, their public stance shows the fight over Grand Slam economics is not going away.
