London: This year’s men and women’s singles champions at Wimbledon will each receive nearly $3 million, as the Grand Slam tournament increases overall prize money by 5 per cent.
The All England Club announced on Tuesday that the total prize fund is going up to 28.1 million pounds (Dh149.9 million) for the grass-court championships.
The prize for the singles champions has been raised by 6.4 per cent, or 120,000 pounds ($175,000), to 2 million pounds ($2.9 million). Last year, Novak Djokovic and Serena Williams each collected 1.88 million pounds ($2.74 million).
First-round losers, meanwhile, will receive 30,000 pounds ($43,000).
Over the past five years, total prize money at Wimbledon has nearly doubled, going up by 92 per cent. The highest increase was in 2013, when the prize fund went up by 40 per cent.
The 130th edition of the tournament will be played at the All England Club from June 27-July 10.
The US Open continues to be the Grand Slam tournament paying the highest prize money. Last year, it paid out a total of $42.3 million — including $3.3 million to each of the singles champions. Prize money has been increased 14 per cent for next month’s French Open to a total of about 32 million euros (Dh132.4 million). The singles winners will each earn 2 million euros ($2.25 million).
Wimbledon also announced increased funding to combat match-fixing and doping, though no specific figures were given. Chief executive Richard Lewis said extra funds would be allocated for analysis of betting patterns to detect any suspicious activity.
The issue of match-fixing came to the forefront during the Australian Open in January when the BBC and BuzzFeed alleged that tennis authorities suppressed evidence and failed to thoroughly investigate possible fixing involving 16 players. That led tennis’ governing bodies to launch an independent review of the sport’s anticorruption group, the Tennis Integrity Unit.
Lewis said Wimbledon would also spend more on drug-testing. The sport is currently dealing with a high-profile case involving Maria Sharapova, who tested positive for meldonium at the Australian Open.
