The total prize money on offer at Wimbledon has risen to a record £44.7 million for the Championships this year, a 11.2 per cent increase on 2022, the All England Lawn Tennis Club (AELTC) said on Wednesday.
Winners and runners-up of the men’s and women’s singles finals will also see their prize money rising to previous levels in 2019, where they received £2.35 million and £1.175 million, respectively.
The prize money for winners fell to £1.7 million in 2021 before it was increased to two million pounds last year.
The qualifying competition prize fund has also received a 14.5 per cent increase on last year while any player losing a first-round match is assured of at least £55 000 – an increase of 10 per cent on 2022.
“We are delighted to offer record prize money to the players competing at the Championships this year, with double digit increases across the majority of events,” said AELTC chairman Ian Hewitt.
“Our ambition with this distribution is to return the singles champions and runners-up prize money to the levels in 2019 prior to the (Covid-19) pandemic while…
providing deserved support for players in the early rounds of the event.”
The grasscourt Grand Slam runs from July 3-16.
Meanwhile, Nick Kyrgios will reveal in upcoming episodes of a Netflix documentary that he spent time in a psychiatric hospital after losing at Wimbledon in 2019, The Australian newspaper reported on Wednesday.
The 28-year-old was knocked out by Rafael Nadal in the second round of the championships that year while wearing a white sleeve to cover up his right arm.
“I was genuinely contemplating if I wanted to commit suicide,” Kyrgios says in an episode of the documentary Break Point to be released later this month, according to the newspaper.
“I lost at Wimbledon. I woke up and my dad was sitting on the bed, full-blown crying. That was the big wake-up call for me. I was like, okay, I can’t keep doing this. I ended up in a psych ward in London to figure out my problems.”