The organizers of the Italian Open have pledged to ensure that the men’s and women’s champions will receive the same amount of prize money from 2025 onwards.
Staged at the Foro Italico in Rome, the event is the last prestigious tournament to take place before the start of the French Open. The combined tournament is currently categorized as a Masters 1000 event on the ATP Tour and as a WTA 1000 on the WTA Tour. It was first held in 1930 in Milan at the Tennis Club before later moving to Rome.
The move to implement equal prize money comes after last year when women’s champion Iga Swiatek won two-and-a-half times less than Novak Djokovic in the men’s tournament. Swiatek earnings were 332,260 euros ($364,000) compared to Djokovic’s tally of 836,355 euros ($916,000). Both tournaments had the same draw size.
“For the first time in history we have started the process that over three years will lead to equal prize money between the women’s and the men’s tournaments,” Italian tennis federation president Angelo Binaghi said on Tuesday.
“We’re talking about 8 million euros (nearly $9 million) for each event. We can make this big leap because the first female CEO of a big bank in Italy has provided us with the necessary resources.” He added.
The CEO Binaghi is referring to is Elena Goitini who is the chief executive of Banca Nazionale del Lavoro which is the bank sponsoring the tournament.
This year is the first time the Italian Open will take place with expanded draws. It will be held over 12 days instead of eight with the draw size of both the men’s and women’s tournaments increasing from 56 to 96.
The move for equal prize money comes more than 50 years after an incident at the tournament contributed to Billie Jean King’s drive to form the WTA Tour and campaign for better financial compensation for women. In 1970 King received six times less than men’s champion Ilie Nastase. In the past, she said that this was the point where she realized women would ‘“get nowhere at the mercy of the men who ran the federations.”
This year’s Italian Open will get underway on May 10th.
