U.S. Open singles champions will get a record $5 million in 2025 and total compensation is up 20%
The U.S. Tennis Association announced the payouts for the year's last Grand Slam tournament, which begins with the new mixed doubles event and its $1 million top check on Aug. 19-20. Singles competition starts on a Sunday for the first time — Aug. 24 — as those brackets expand from 14 days to 15.
The increases at Flushing Meadows — where last year's total compensation was $75 million — come as the sport's leading players have been in discussions with each of the four major tournaments in a bid to receive a higher percentage of revenues at the U.S. Open, Wimbledon, French Open and Australian Open.
Novak Djokovic, Coco Gauff and 2024 U.S. Open champions Aryna Sabalenka and Jannik Sinner were among 20 players who signed a letter sent to the heads of the four Grand Slam events in March seeking more prize money and a greater say in what they called 'decisions that directly impact us.' Since then, some players have held talks with the majors.
The previous high amount for a U.S. Open singles championship was $3.85 million in 2019, before decreasing during the COVID-19 pandemic.
This year's $5 million check represents a 39% hike from last year's $3.6 million. The same percentage increase was applied to the singles runners-up, who get $2.5 million each. Semifinalists will earn $1.26 million, a 26% rise.
At Wimbledon, prize money went up about 7% to about $73 million at the exchange rate when the All England Club announced its player payments. The singles champions were paid about $4 million apiece.
In New York, the winning teams in women's and men's doubles will receive $1 million, a new high for those events at the U.S. Open, where total prizes for qualifying are going up to $8 million, a 10% increase.
The $85 million in 2025 U.S. Open prize money includes singles, doubles, qualifying and wheelchair events.
The news comes after the USTA said in May that its main arena, Arthur Ashe Stadium, would be overhauled as part of an $800 million project touted as the 'largest single investment' in U.S. Open history.
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Yahoo
42 minutes ago
- Yahoo
The Cincinnati Open's $260M tennis bet on the future of a format under fire
MASON, Ohio — Ben Navarro was sitting on one of the most valuable properties in sports: A license for one of the six combined top-level events in tennis outside of the Grand Slams. Navarro purchased the license from the USTA in 2022, attached to the Cincinnati Open, which takes place in a far different setting than the other five. Four take players and fans to Miami, Madrid, Rome and Toronto and Montreal (with the Canadian Open played across the two cities). Major cities and international destinations, all. Then there's Indian Wells, Calif., a resort community in Palm Springs, one of the backyard playgrounds for Los Angeles. Navarro's tournament, in southern Ohio, doesn't even take place in Cincinnati, which is a city of just 300,000 people. It happens about a 30-minute drive north, in Mason, population 36,000, best known for some stomach-churning roller coasters. Navarro, a billionaire who made his money in debt collection and credit facilities for subprime borrowers, had options. Charlotte, N.C., a growing city triple the size of Cincinnati, had a proposal. Navarro already owns the Charleston Open. Chicago, a huge tennis market and the country's third biggest city, held obvious potential. Instead, with datelines and bright lights in his eyes, Navarro has doubled down on Mason. The top ATP and WTA players have arrived at their last big stop before the U.S. Open to a $260-million renovation and expansion of the Lindner Family Tennis Center. Navarro covered around half the cost, with local governments covering the rest. 'We looked at every option,' Bob Moran, the tournament director and an executive at Navarro's investment company, Beemok Capital, said during an interview. 'Once we put a very little investment in 2024, and then saw some dramatic difference from what it was the year before, things started to shift. OK, we can definitely do it here.' Those top players appear to agree. 'I first came in here, I was like, 'What's going on? Where am I?'' Aryna Sabalenka, the world No. 1, said Wednesday during a pre-tournament roundtable. 'It took me a little while to like feel comfortable in the previous venue and now like we're in a completely different tournament.' Sabalenka said players used to be on top of each other during the first days of the tournament. Now there is more space in every department. A bunch of parking lots and blacktop walkways have become a clubhouse (56,000 square feet); an outdoor pavilion (16,000 square feet); an indoor tennis center with six courts (53,000 square feet) and an operations center (20,000 square feet). There are 13 new courts, including a new 2,300-seat sunken stadium. The site has grown from 20 to 40 acres. There are flower-lined, grassy areas throughout the campus, thanks to more than 40,000 annuals grown locally in 3.3 acres of greenhouse space. There are more than 2,000 new young trees and shrubs that should grow in the coming years and turn the place into a park with tennis courts. Nearly all of it is available for public use, including the clubhouse, which will be a restaurant and bar when the tennis tournament isn't happening. Maybe most importantly, the ubiquitous black asphalt that served as an underfoot oven during the steamiest days of the infernal southern Ohio summer has given way to grass and light stone. The growth aligns with the Cincinnati Open's place in the tennis firmament outside of geography. Like the Canadian Open, this year it has grown from one week to 12 days. 56-player draws have become 96. That means more ticket sales, more sponsorship opportunities and more days of TV rights. It also means the finals in Canada overlap with the first round in Cincinnati, making playing both tournaments complicated for those top players. Sabalenka skipped the Canadian Open. So did Jannik Sinner, Carlos Alcaraz, Novak Djokovic and Jack Draper. Djokovic and Draper are out of Cincinnati too, but the others are in town. The extended ATP and WTA 1,000 format has come in for criticism from those players and fans for its at-times glacial pace and its inflation of an already strenuous schedule. The tours say that those things are the price for the increased prize money that players also say they want; that prize money is not yet equal in Cincinnati. The women's singles champion will this year receive $752,275 (£562,700), a 43-percent increase on last year. The men's singles champion will get $1,124,380, nearly $375,000 more. The WTA has committed to equal prize money at combined events by 2027; of the six combined 1,000 events, the Italian Open, the Canadian Open and Cincinnati are yet to get there. Amid these issues, a significant renovation can certainly help with placation. It's also a powerful statement about the staying power of the new normal, for better or for worse. 'Every tournament on our calendar brings something different, and that's a good thing,' said Simon Higson, a spokesperson for the ATP Tour. Of Cincinnati, he said that 'players enjoy it, and it fits well into the schedule ahead of New York. 'Of course, the major investments and renovation now being unlocked through its expansion will only strengthen its standing on tour as both the player and fan experience reach new levels.' A significant tennis tournament first took place in Cincinnati in 1899, at a country club on property that is now part of Xavier University. This makes the Cincinnati Open the oldest tennis tournament to be played in its original city in the country. The U.S. Open, had some years in Newport, R.I. before making its way to New York. 1,600 volunteers turn out to work at the tournament, all displaying the enthusiasm of the small city that produced Tony Trabert, a five-time Grand Slam singles winner in the 1950s, as well as current WTA pros Peyton Stearns and Caty McNally. At a ribbon-cutting ceremony Sunday, Navarro recalled coming to the tournament when he was likely to buy it. He'd spent some of his early years in Indiana and had a soft spot for the Midwest. 'Person after person came up to me respectfully and said, 'I hear you're going to be the new owner of the tournament.' And they tell me some generational story for how much the tournament meant to them: 'I came with my father.' 'I took my kids.' 'My mom loved this tournament.' 125 years of tradition is nothing to sneeze at, right?' Moran, the tournament director, was a little skeptical that any of this might be possible when he first set eyes on the place in 2023 after Navarro purchased the tournament. He'd been running the Charleston Open, which Navarro also owns, for more than a decade. He arrived in Cincinnati and thought it felt dormant. 'I just kind of dove in to get to know the greater Cincinnati area the best I could,' he said in an interview Wednesday. 'What I learned is that it has an unbelievable volunteer base. Unbelievable fans who care very deeply about this event.' He did some research on who those fans are. They drive in from all over, including Chicago, which is five hours away. Two-thirds of the ticket buyers come from outside the Cincinnati region. There was a solid corporate base that needed to be mined a little more. The East Coast had plenty of tournaments. The West Coast had Indian Wells. Cincinnati has 125 years of history. 'Why are we going to go somewhere else and try to reinvent the wheel?' Moran asked. Moran knows Cincinnati will never be Madrid or Rome. They have to work a little harder. 'What's our advantage? The personal touches.' They buy out the neighboring golf course during the tournaments so players can play there whenever they want. Alcaraz has found some other, fancier course, but that's how he rolls. Moran joins players for dinners ahead of the tournament. He sat with Maria Sakkari, Donna Vekić and others Tuesday night. He took Frances Tiafoe to Jeff Ruby's Steakhouse downtown after he lost the final to Jannik Sinner last year. He gets players tickets to Reds MLB games and F.C. Cincinnati matches. 'We want players to feel like, hey, this is a fun place to come and it feels like home,' he said. Venus Williams, who has been coming to Cincinnati for a while and has been to just about every tennis tournament in every corner of the world during her 30-year career, may have given the ultimate compliment Wednesday morning. 'I think it's a great representation of what tennis should be,' she said. (Top photo: Aaron Doster / Imagn Images) This article originally appeared in The Athletic. Sports Business, Tennis, Women's Tennis 2025 The Athletic Media Company
New York Times
an hour ago
- New York Times
The Cincinnati Open's $260M tennis bet on the future of a format under fire
MASON, Ohio — Ben Navarro was sitting on one of the most valuable properties in sports: A license for one of the six combined top-level events in tennis outside of the Grand Slams. Navarro purchased the license from the USTA in 2022, attached to the Cincinnati Open, which takes place in a far different setting than the other five. Four take players and fans to Miami, Madrid, Rome and Toronto and Montreal (with the Canadian Open played across the two cities). Major cities and international destinations, all. Then there's Indian Wells, Calif., a resort community in Palm Springs, one of the backyard playgrounds for Los Angeles. Advertisement Navarro's tournament, in southern Ohio, doesn't even take place in Cincinnati, which is a city of just 300,000 people. It happens about a 30-minute drive north, in Mason, population 36,000, best known for some stomach-churning roller coasters. Navarro, a billionaire who made his money in debt collection and credit facilities for subprime borrowers, had options. Charlotte, N.C., a growing city triple the size of Cincinnati, had a proposal. Navarro already owns the Charleston Open. Chicago, a huge tennis market and the country's third biggest city, held obvious potential. Instead, with datelines and bright lights in his eyes, Navarro has doubled down on Mason. The top ATP and WTA players have arrived at their last big stop before the U.S. Open to a $260-million renovation and expansion of the Lindner Family Tennis Center. Navarro covered around half the cost, with local governments covering the rest. 'We looked at every option,' Bob Moran, the tournament director and an executive at Navarro's investment company, Beemok Capital, said during an interview. 'Once we put a very little investment in 2024, and then saw some dramatic difference from what it was the year before, things started to shift. OK, we can definitely do it here.' Those top players appear to agree. 'I first came in here, I was like, 'What's going on? Where am I?'' Aryna Sabalenka, the world No. 1, said Wednesday during a pre-tournament roundtable. 'It took me a little while to like feel comfortable in the previous venue and now like we're in a completely different tournament.' Sabalenka said players used to be on top of each other during the first days of the tournament. Now there is more space in every department. A bunch of parking lots and blacktop walkways have become a clubhouse (56,000 square feet); an outdoor pavilion (16,000 square feet); an indoor tennis center with six courts (53,000 square feet) and an operations center (20,000 square feet). Advertisement There are 13 new courts, including a new 2,300-seat sunken stadium. The site has grown from 20 to 40 acres. There are flower-lined, grassy areas throughout the campus, thanks to more than 40,000 annuals grown locally in 3.3 acres of greenhouse space. There are more than 2,000 new young trees and shrubs that should grow in the coming years and turn the place into a park with tennis courts. Nearly all of it is available for public use, including the clubhouse, which will be a restaurant and bar when the tennis tournament isn't happening. Maybe most importantly, the ubiquitous black asphalt that served as an underfoot oven during the steamiest days of the infernal southern Ohio summer has given way to grass and light stone. The growth aligns with the Cincinnati Open's place in the tennis firmament outside of geography. Like the Canadian Open, this year it has grown from one week to 12 days. 56-player draws have become 96. That means more ticket sales, more sponsorship opportunities and more days of TV rights. It also means the finals in Canada overlap with the first round in Cincinnati, making playing both tournaments complicated for those top players. Sabalenka skipped the Canadian Open. So did Jannik Sinner, Carlos Alcaraz, Novak Djokovic and Jack Draper. Djokovic and Draper are out of Cincinnati too, but the others are in town. The extended ATP and WTA 1,000 format has come in for criticism from those players and fans for its at-times glacial pace and its inflation of an already strenuous schedule. The tours say that those things are the price for the increased prize money that players also say they want; that prize money is not yet equal in Cincinnati. The women's singles champion will this year receive $752,275 (£562,700), a 43-percent increase on last year. The men's singles champion will get $1,124,380, nearly $375,000 more. The WTA has committed to equal prize money at combined events by 2027; of the six combined 1,000 events, the Italian Open, the Canadian Open and Cincinnati are yet to get there. Advertisement Amid these issues, a significant renovation can certainly help with placation. It's also a powerful statement about the staying power of the new normal, for better or for worse. 'Every tournament on our calendar brings something different, and that's a good thing,' said Simon Higson, a spokesperson for the ATP Tour. Of Cincinnati, he said that 'players enjoy it, and it fits well into the schedule ahead of New York. 'Of course, the major investments and renovation now being unlocked through its expansion will only strengthen its standing on tour as both the player and fan experience reach new levels.' A significant tennis tournament first took place in Cincinnati in 1899, at a country club on property that is now part of Xavier University. This makes the Cincinnati Open the oldest tennis tournament to be played in its original city in the country. The U.S. Open, had some years in Newport, R.I. before making its way to New York. 1,600 volunteers turn out to work at the tournament, all displaying the enthusiasm of the small city that produced Tony Trabert, a five-time Grand Slam singles winner in the 1950s, as well as current WTA pros Peyton Stearns and Caty McNally. At a ribbon-cutting ceremony Sunday, Navarro recalled coming to the tournament when he was likely to buy it. He'd spent some of his early years in Indiana and had a soft spot for the Midwest. 'Person after person came up to me respectfully and said, 'I hear you're going to be the new owner of the tournament.' And they tell me some generational story for how much the tournament meant to them: 'I came with my father.' 'I took my kids.' 'My mom loved this tournament.' 125 years of tradition is nothing to sneeze at, right?' Moran, the tournament director, was a little skeptical that any of this might be possible when he first set eyes on the place in 2023 after Navarro purchased the tournament. He'd been running the Charleston Open, which Navarro also owns, for more than a decade. He arrived in Cincinnati and thought it felt dormant. Advertisement 'I just kind of dove in to get to know the greater Cincinnati area the best I could,' he said in an interview Wednesday. 'What I learned is that it has an unbelievable volunteer base. Unbelievable fans who care very deeply about this event.' He did some research on who those fans are. They drive in from all over, including Chicago, which is five hours away. Two-thirds of the ticket buyers come from outside the Cincinnati region. There was a solid corporate base that needed to be mined a little more. The East Coast had plenty of tournaments. The West Coast had Indian Wells. Cincinnati has 125 years of history. 'Why are we going to go somewhere else and try to reinvent the wheel?' Moran asked. Moran knows Cincinnati will never be Madrid or Rome. They have to work a little harder. 'What's our advantage? The personal touches.' They buy out the neighboring golf course during the tournaments so players can play there whenever they want. Alcaraz has found some other, fancier course, but that's how he rolls. Moran joins players for dinners ahead of the tournament. He sat with Maria Sakkari, Donna Vekić and others Tuesday night. He took Frances Tiafoe to Jeff Ruby's Steakhouse downtown after he lost the final to Jannik Sinner last year. He gets players tickets to Reds MLB games and F.C. Cincinnati matches. 'We want players to feel like, hey, this is a fun place to come and it feels like home,' he said. Venus Williams, who has been coming to Cincinnati for a while and has been to just about every tennis tournament in every corner of the world during her 30-year career, may have given the ultimate compliment Wednesday morning. 'I think it's a great representation of what tennis should be,' she said. Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms Play today's puzzle
New York Times
2 hours ago
- New York Times
Coco Gauff manifested a Grand Slam title at the French Open. Or did she?
Editor's Note: This story is part of Peak, The Athletic's desk covering leadership, personal development and success through the lens of sports. Follow Peak here. The idea came from an Olympic gold medalist, and the ritual didn't take long, so on the night before the 2025 French Open final, Coco Gauff pulled out a pen and a small piece of paper. Advertisement 'I will win French Open 2025,' she scribbled. Then she kept writing. 'I will win French Open 2025' 'I will win French Open 2025' When she ran out of paper, she'd filled up eight lines. Gauff had borrowed the technique from Gabby Thomas, the American sprinter who spent every morning at the Paris Olympics writing a similar intention in the Notes app on her phone: 'I will be Olympic champion.' To Gauff, it reminded her of something she'd discussed with her therapist. She'd always had an inclination for self-doubt, for negative thoughts that creep in before matches. Instead of ignoring them, her therapist wondered, what if she re-directed them? 'Instead of being like, 'What if I lose?'' Gauff explained on 'Good Morning America' earlier this year. 'Think about, 'What if I win?' Or, 'I will win.'' In the parlance of Gen Z, there was an easy way to describe what Gauff was doing. She was manifesting; at least, that's how some saw it. It was an old idea that resurfaced during the pandemic and caught fire online, resulting in a TikTok trend of 'vision boards,' where people illustrated their end goals with images, or 'scripting,' the practice of writing down your goals and desires over and over. The concept of manifestation gained popularity in the 2000s, when the self-help book 'The Secret' promoted the Law of Attraction, an idea that positive thoughts bring forth positive results. In reality, it was a repurposed version of the ancient theory of karma, or the belief that good deeds will lead to positive outcomes. When it came to the French Open, the outcome gave rise to an alluring idea: Gauff had defeated Aryna Sabalenka to win her second Grand Slam title through sheer force of will and positive thinking. She had, as the phrase went, spoken her win into existence. But was that right? Researchers have long cautioned there is no scientific basis for the idea of manifesting. 'Magical thinking,' said Elliot Berkman, a psychology professor at the University of Oregon who studies motivation and behavior change. Advertisement But athletes are a fascinating cohort. They follow unusual routines. They lean on superstition and positive self-talk to increase confidence and belief. 'When you're desperate,' Gauff told reporters, 'you're just trying anything to think that it's going to help you win.' The law of attraction will not carry an athlete to victory on pure positive vibes, psychologists say, but there are actual scientific reasons why writing down your intentions and goals — why saying, 'I will win' — could offer a genuine performance benefit. A 2017 study by researchers at the University of Toronto showed that utilizing a ritual before performance can reduce anxiety and help an athlete rebound from failure. Another sport psychology professor says that writing down a simple intention can be powerful if the athlete then imagines what winning would look and feel like, which activates the same part of the brain used during performance, a concept known as functional equivalence. 'You're still activating those neural pathways that you would in the real world,' said Alan Chu, an associate professor at the UNC Greensboro. Studies have long shown that people who write down their goals are more likely to achieve them. One explanation is what psychologists call the 'Generation effect,' which indicates that people are more likely to remember information that they've actively produced rather than passively consumed. There is also no shortage of athletes who spent their formative years writing down their goals on paper. Michael Phelps, the legendary Olympic swimmer, would list his goals, then post the paper in a closet, where only he could see it. Emmitt Smith, the NFL's all-time leading rusher, started writing down his goals in high school, adhering to a message passed on from his coach: 'It's a dream until you write it down; then it becomes a goal.' Advertisement It was a similar sentiment to one repeated by former MLB outfielder Ichiro Suzuki when he was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in late July. 'Dreaming is fun, but goals are difficult and challenging,' Suzuki said. 'It's not enough to say I want to do something. If you are serious about it, you must think critically about what is necessary to achieve it.' Suzuki's message underlined the main flaw in the Law of Attraction doctrine. Berkman, the Oregon professor, says that research has shown that dwelling on the end result is often counterproductive in pursuing a goal. 'I think it is actually fairly intuitive why that doesn't work,' he said. 'Like, if I want to get from here to Kathmandu, just thinking about being in Kathmandu is not going to get me there.' But for Thomas and Gauff, the act of writing down their intention was less about outlining a goal or a behavior change, and more about putting them in the right mindset to compete. In this way, the process of writing the same intention over and over may have yielded a different effect, one that increased their resilience. In 2017, Nick Hobson, then a research psychologist at the University of Toronto, published a study that found that people who used a ritual before completing a task had less of a neurological response in the brain when they made an error. The explanation is fairly simple: The part of the brain associated with failure, called the anterior cingulate cortex, possesses something akin to an 'oh s— signal,' Hobson said. When a person uses a ritual before performance, it dampens the signal. 'You're going to make a mistake in any performance context,' Hobson said. 'So how do you trick your brain — your behavior — to say, 'I just made an error. That's OK. Let's slow down so that you prevent the occurrence of a subsequent error?' I think that's what rituals do. It makes the sting of a failure less aversive.' Advertisement Chu, the professor at UNC Greensboro, says there may be an even better way for an athlete to lift themselves up through positive self talk. Some research has suggested that athletes may get an even bigger dopamine boost by talking to themselves in the second person. 'Using the word 'you' sometimes could be more helpful than using the word 'I',' Chu said. 'Because you are almost feeling like you're hearing that voice from a third party.' For Gauff, the post-match explanation of her mental strategy was almost beside the point. As she scribbled on a piece of paper and looked in the mirror, she wasn't sure if it would work or not. But for one day, it did. That was enough. (Illustration: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic; Yanshan Zhang / Getty Images) Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms Play today's puzzle
