The Hindu : Windfall awaits winners at Wimbledon

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Apr 24, 2002

Sport

Sport - Tennis

Windfall awaits winners at Wimbledon

By P. Subramanyam

London April 23. The All England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club, organiser of the Wimbledon Championships, has increased this year's prizemoney in the singles competition by five per cent, it was announced on Tuesday.

However, the disparity between the men's and women's competitions persists. The men's champion will receive £ 525,000, an increase of

£ 25,000 on the cheque won by Goran Ivanisevic last year. The winner of the women's event will receive £ 486,000, up by £ 24,000.

Interestingly, the Australian and U.S. Open organisers had recently decided to award the same prizemoney to men and women while the French Open, like Wimbledon, will continue to give more money to the men.

Mr. Tim Phillips, Chairman of the Wimbledon committee, said that the increase was in line with the five-year average of the championship's prize fund increase. "I said last year I didn't expect to see (equal pay) in the foreseeable future,'' he said and added: "We think we are being fair.'' Elaborating further, Mr. Phillips said: "We consider the U.S. and Australian Opens to be the ones being out of line. There is no other tournament with equal prizemoney and we are not sure there are many other sporting events with equal parity in terms of men and women.

"This game is all about the players. It is a fantastically competitive game and we felt that they deserved the increase they have been given."

The prize fund for the men's and ladies' doubles competitions have also been increased by 2.4 per cent. Thus, the total Wimbledon prizemoney for the 2002 tournament will be more than £ 8.8 million.

Plans afoot for new Court 2

Mr. Phillips also announced plans to build a new Court Two stadium. He said that the club has already requested planning permission from the London Borough of Merton County Council in this regard.

The new stadium will be located on the south side of the Club with a seating capacity of 5,000.

Among other developments completed in time for this year's Championships, is the renovation of the Royal Box on Centre Court. There were suggestions that the Queen may pay a visit to the tournament in her Golden Jubilee year, but the chairman quickly dismissed it. "It is highly unlikely,'' Mr. Phillips said.

The last time the Queen came to the Championships was in 1977, the year of her Silver Jubilee, when British player Virginia Wade was crowned.

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