(Madrid) 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 be done regarding the equality of prize money on 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 United States Open, won the WTA 500 tournament in Stuttgart last week, earning just over 100,000 euros (150,000 Canadian dollars). The Spaniard Carlos Alcaraz, world No.2, pocketed a check for 475,000 euros (715,000 Canadian dollars) 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”, Swiatek added.
I can only say that it would be good for our sport to be equal, especially because we do pretty much the same job.
Iga Swiatek
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 equal prize money between men and women in 1973. It took until 2001 for the Australian Open to follow the American example, then 2007 with Roland-Garros and Wimbledon.