ROME, May 7: Italian Open organizers are supporting tennis players who are urging a boycott unless the Grand Slam tournaments improve their prize money.
Angelo Binaghi, the president of the Italian Tennis and Padel Federation, is also campaigning to turn the Rome event into a fifth Grand Slam.
The players have targeted the coming French Open for reducing players’ share of revenue to an alleged 14.3% — compared to the 22% at ATP and WTA events like the Italian Open this week.
Top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka and Coco Gauff were among players this week threatening a boycott of the Slams if they don’t start receiving more compensation.
“The players have our full support,” Binaghi said.
“It’s scandalous that we’re required by the ATP to share a bigger cut of the revenues with the players and the four Grand Slams hand out a smaller cut.
“It’s shameful and creates competitive disparities, too, because the four nations (that organize the Slams) have a huge amount of money to invest in their technical sectors that other nations don’t have,” Binaghi added. “I want to blow apart this monopoly.”
PRIZE MONEY
It should be noted that the Italian Open has offered less prize money for women than men for years. The total men’s prize money this year in Rome is $9.6 million while the women’s prize money is $8.3 million.
But next week the women’s champion in Rome will earn 1.055 million euros — slightly more than the 1.007 million euros handed out to the men’s winner.
FIFTH GRAND SLAM
For more than a year, Binaghi has been campaigning to turn the Italian Open into a fifth Grand Slam alongside the Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon and U.S. Open — upending a century of tennis history.
With Jannik Sinner dominating at No. 1 and three other Italians in the men’s top 20 rankings — No. 10 Lorenzo Musetti; No. 12 Flavio Cobolli and No. 20 Luciano Darderi — Italian tennis is booming.
Italy has won the Davis Cup for three straight years and the Billie Jean King Cup — the women’s team event — for the last two years.So Binaghi, who took over the federation a quarter century ago when it was nearly bankrupt, wants to take advantage of the boom for his Grand Slam dream.
“We’re experiencing a stretch of tennis in Italy that will be tough to repeat, because it also needs to be considered in comparison with the Italian soccer debacle,” Binaghi said, referring to how Italy failed to qualify for a third consecutive World Cup. Besides tradition and scheduling issues, Binaghi faces another major obstacle toward making the Italian Open bigger: There’s little room for expansion at the Foro Italico.
“We’re open to organizing a (fifth Grand Slam) anywhere in Italy — on any surface,” Binaghi said. (AP)
