Roger Federer says it\u2019s time for his fellow professional players to rally and seek greater prize money from the four tennis Grand Slam tournaments.<\/p>\n
The 19-time major winner says the current agreement is a good one, but it has run its course and time was right for players to get together and seek pay increases.<\/p>\n
Novak Djokovic, as president of the ATP player council, said this week at the Australian Open in Melbourne that \u201ceverybody\u2019s trying to do their best\u201d when asked about players getting a bigger slice of the Grand Slam cash pool.<\/p>\n
Federer, who has amassed almost $112 million in career prize money, supported Djokovic\u2019s push for a bigger percentage of revenue for players.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had a good agreement, in my opinion, that made the Grand Slams happy, the players pretty happy. Seems like that has run its course,\u201d he said after his second round match late Thursday.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe moment that happens, there\u2019s not the same increases any more, so players have to rally, get back together again, put in the effort.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Grand Slams know that. They will only react when we do so. We\u2019re ready to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Australian Open tournament director Craig Tiley has reportedly outlined plans to boost prize money at the opening Grand Slam of the year from $55 million to $100 million over the next five years.<\/p>\n
The singles champion this year will get $4.0 million, but first round losers only receive $60,000.<\/p>\n
Federer said going over the same process of having to ask for more was realise\u201da bit boring\u201d, but the revenue-sharing model was not quite where it was supposed to be.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut, look, you can\u2019t go from here to right there in a day. We know that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just hope they (Slams organisers) realise and they do appreciate us maybe more all the time and not just in waves, you know what I mean?<\/p>\n
\u201cBut it\u2019s all good. We have good contacts with the Slams. It\u2019s all good. But it\u2019s going to be a never-ending story.\u201d<\/p>\n
Federer added that it was good that the players were talking to one another.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen the players don\u2019t talk, nothing gets done. If the players talk to one another, it\u2019s interesting,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not something we can do every day. We don\u2019t have the players in the same room at all times. We can get together in locker rooms, have a quick huddle-up meeting all together.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut to get organised all ourselves, it\u2019s not always easy because everybody has different schedules.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just got to make a conscious effort to get together and talk to one another. I think that\u2019s good, I\u2019m all for that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Roger Federer says it\u2019s time for his fellow professional players to rally and seek greater prize money from the four tennis Grand Slam tournaments. The 19-time major winner says the current agreement is a good one, but it has run its course and time was right for players to get together and seek pay increases. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19223,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19222"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19222\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19224,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19222\/revisions\/19224"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}