Wimbledon will offer to create a new player council in a meeting with leading player representatives scheduled for Roland Garros next week, with Tim Henman having intervened in the ongoing row over grand slam prize money.
The Guardian has learned the former British No 1 and All England Club Board member held talks with several top players, including representatives of the WTA Players’ Council at the Italian Open in Rome earlier this month. A formal meeting between Wimbledon officials and player agents at the French Open will follow.
Some players may join the meeting depending on their tournament schedules with Jannik Sinner’s representative, Alex Vittur, one of several leading agents to have confirmed their attendance.
Wimbledon, the French Open and the US Open have been open to meeting the top players’ representatives to discuss concerns over prize money, welfare and representation since December. But the representatives have insisted they will not discuss the formation of a player council until the grand slam organisers address requests for a greater percentage of revenue for players and contributions to welfare initiatives, such as pension funds. In March, the representatives rejected a proposed joint meeting at the Indian Wells Masters with the three slams on those grounds. It is not clear if Wimbledon will entertain those requests in Paris.
Wimbledon will offer to create its own player council and reaffirm their commitment to growing the sport and increasing prize money, with this year’s Championships prize fund to be revealed at a press conference on 11 June. The players’ representatives will also meet with the French Tennis Federation and United States Tennis Association, but Tennis Australia will not be involved in any discussions in Paris.
In a sign of the sport’s fractured governance the Australian Open has aligned with the Professional Tennis Players’ Association, which is suing the other three grand slam governing bodies in New York’s district court over alleged restrictive practices in a separate dispute.
It is unclear if Henman’s intervention has helped bring the players to the negotiating table, but given his status in the sport the 51-year-old may have helped to smooth relations. Henman is understood to have met representatives of the WTA’s Player Council in Rome, and is a regular presence on both tours and at slams due to his media commitments.
Wimbledon’s tournament director, Jamie Baker, and player relations director, Laura Robson, were also in Rome and both have good relations with the current crop of players.
The dispute has been rumbling since last year’s French Open when a delegation of players, including Carlos Alcaraz, Jannik Sinner, Aryna Sabalenka and Coco Gauff, urged executives from all the slams to increase their prize funds to 22% of revenue by 2030.
Following a modest 7% increase in prize money by Wimbledon that had already been budgeted for in the aftermath of Paris, the US Open and Australian Open increased their prize funds by 20% and 16% respectively, but the French Open’s announcement of a 9.5% increase this year led to a further escalation in tensions.
The players responded by claiming last month that the real-terms increase as a percentage of the tournament’s revenue was 5.4%, as the French Open’s income last year increased by 14% to €395m.
After several players including Sinner, Sabalenka and Gauff openly discussed a future boycott of the slams in Rome all the leading players have agreed to reduce their media activities at the French Open in a coordinated protest, as revealed by the Guardian on Wednesday.
The players will only participate in pre-tournament press conferences with written media and conduct one interview with a host broadcaster.
In addition, they will refuse to conduct their usual one-on-one interviews with global TV rights holders, who pay significant amounts of money for such privileges.
“Of course, we are a little sad about this choice, quite simply, because I think we all find that it penalises all the actors of the tournament, the players, the fans, the press, of course,” Amélie Mauresmo, the French Open tournament director, said on Thursday. “Discussions have begun, and they’ll be even more so tomorrow evening.
“But we’re truly engaged in this communication, in this desire to exchange ideas, to move forward. To also acknowledge that everyone has a step to take towards the other. And I am confident in the exchanges that will take place … So I think that in the interest of tennis in general, I am rather confident.”
