Nick Kyrgios has been an outspoken critic of tennis players on both tours receiving equal pay and has latched onto that topic in a recent interview with the Athletic.
The discourse about pay inequity has ruffled the feathers of many WTA players who believe they should be compensated fairly for their efforts and skills as men. One of the ways in which sports promote gender equity is to allow the inclusivity of women to play and receive equal pay.
But traditionally, women have faced considerable discrepancies in monetary incentives in sports, particularly tennis, where only a handful of tournaments offer pay equal to that of their male counterparts. The US Open was the first tennis tournament to set precedence 50 years ago.
Since then, the other three major tournaments followed suit. Some combined ATP and WTA 1000 events, like Indian Wells, Miami, and Madrid, have also adopted this module. But discussions to make that initiative traverse all through the other events have not yielded any fruits.
The jury is still out on whether this will be instituted in the near future, although the WTA did announce the pathway for achieving equal pay by 2027 only at joint WTA 1000 and 500 events, and one-week WTA 1000 and 500 will do so by 2033.
Kyrgios recently shared his thoughts on why he objects to equal pay at the Grand Slams. The injured Australian star argues that men play a different format than women, and it is only logical that their matches would last longer.
Men have always played best-of-five-set matches at Grand Slams, while women play best of three at all WTA tournaments. He cited an example of how he once played a four-hour match at the Australian Open when Ukraine’s top-ranked woman, Elina Svitolina, played a lot less, and both received equal prize money for their work.
“I played for four hours at the A.O. (Australian Open), then (Elina) Svitolina played for like 40 minutes and we both got paid the same.”
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