Fri | Jan 10, 2025

US Open player compensation rises to record US$75 million

Published:Thursday | August 8, 2024 | 12:10 AM
Coco Gauff of the United States returns a shot to Donna Vekic of Croatia during their women’s singles third-round match at Roland Garros, at the 2024 Summer Olympics on Tuesday, July 30, in Paris, France.
AP
Coco Gauff of the United States returns a shot to Donna Vekic of Croatia during their women’s singles third-round match at Roland Garros, at the 2024 Summer Olympics on Tuesday, July 30, in Paris, France.

AP:

COCO GAUFF, Novak Djokovic and other players at the US Open will be playing for a record total of US$75 million in compensation at the year’s last Grand Slam tennis tournament, a rise of about 15 per cent from a year ago.

The women’s and men’s singles champions will each receive US$3.6 million, the US Tennis Association (USTA) announced yesterday.

The total compensation, which includes money to cover players’ expenses, rises US$10 million from the US$65 million in 2023 and was touted by the USTA as being “the largest purse in tennis history”.

The full compensation puts the US Open ahead of the sport’s other three major championships in 2024. Based on currency exchange figures at the times of the events, Wimbledon offered about US$64 million in prizes, with the French Open and Australian Open both at about US$58 million.

The champions’ cheques jump 20 per cent from last year’s US$3 million, but the amount remains below the pre-pandemic paycheque of US$3.85 million that went to each winner in 2019.

Last year at Flushing Meadows, Gauff won her first Grand Slam title and Djokovic earned his 24th, extending his record for the most by a man in tennis history.

Play in the main draws for singles begins on August 26 at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center and concludes with the women’s final on September 7 and the men’s final a day later.

There are increases in every round of the main draw and in qualifying.

Players exiting the 128-person brackets in the first round of the main event for women’s and men’s singles get US$100,000 each for the first time, up from US$81,500 in 2023 and from US$58,000 in 2019.

In doubles, the champions will get US$750,000 per team; that number was US$700,000 a year ago.

There won’t be a wheelchair competition at Flushing Meadows this year because the dates of the Paralympic Games in Paris overlap with the US Open. So the USTA is giving player grants to the players who would have been in the US Open field via direct entry.