Tennis’s leading players will carry their prize-money protest into Wimbledon, capping their contracted media appearances at 15 minutes throughout the opening week of the Championships in a direct continuation of the action first staged at Roland-Garros in May.
The decision, confirmed on Wednesday, will take effect from the pre-tournament press conferences on Saturday and run through the first week of the grass-court Grand Slam, which begins on 29 June. The figure is deliberate: the 15-minute limit is intended to mirror the share of revenue — roughly 14 to 15 per cent — that players say the Grand Slams currently return to them.
The move is being coordinated by RedEye, the informal player alliance operating across the ATP and WTA that drove the campaign in Paris. The group has written to the All England Club to notify its leadership of the planned action. Notably, the letter acknowledges the prize-money increase Wimbledon announced this month — a rise to £64.2 million, up 20 per cent on 2025 and, in the Club’s own description, the largest annual uplift in the tournament’s 149-year history. Each of the men’s and women’s singles champions will earn £3.6 million.
That the players are pressing ahead regardless underlines that the dispute was never solely about the headline figure. Their case rests on three arguments.
The first is structural rather than financial. Proposals tabled a year ago for a player welfare fund and a formal player council — mechanisms intended to support the rank and file rather than the elite — have, the group says, received no substantive response from the All England Club.
The second concerns percentages set against raw numbers. Despite the 20 per cent rise, the players calculate their share of Wimbledon’s projected revenues at 14.4 per cent, below the 14.9 per cent of a decade ago, even as the tournament’s revenues have grown by more than £280 million over the same period. Their July 2025 submission had sought 16 per cent of revenues, approximately £71 million, against the £64.2 million eventually confirmed.
The third point may decide whether the standoff moves at all. The players say recent public comments from Wimbledon’s leadership have questioned the very principle of a revenue-sharing formula — the foundation on which their entire proposal rests.
All England Club chair Deborah Jevans, announcing the increase, urged players to recognise that the Club had listened, adding that surplus revenues are reinvested in facilities, the grass-court season and the development of the sport. She has maintained that a direct revenue-sharing model is not feasible, arguing that revenue alone does not reflect the investment the Club makes as a not-for-profit organisation.
The protest revives a tactic that, at Roland-Garros, was mostly observed, occasionally stretched, and never escalated into the outright boycott that some of the game’s biggest names had floated beforehand. In Paris, the French federation held firm on this year’s prize money while opening talks, with tournament director Amélie Mauresmo insisting players’ concerns were taken seriously even as she ruled out movement for the 2026 edition.
The rhetoric has hardened across the clay and grass swings. World No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka said before the French Open that players should be prepared to consider a boycott in future if their demands went unanswered, while men’s No. 1 Jannik Sinner and Coco Gauff are among those who have publicly supported a larger share.
The Grand Slams have consistently drawn a distinction between their own non-profit structures and the investor-backed commercial machinery of the wider tour, in effect inviting players to direct their grievance elsewhere. With qualifying under way at Roehampton, the main-draw ceremony set for Friday and the first protest press conferences due on Saturday, the opening exchanges of Wimbledon 2026 look set to take place as much in the interview room as on the grass.
