At the 2009 Australian Open men’s and women’s singles winners will receive an 18 percent increase from last year. Bringing the total prize money to $15.6 million.
It was announced on Wednesday that the singles winners will receive an additional $1.15 million each based on the current exchange rates.
The Australian Open is due to begin on the January 19th and finish on the February 1st. It will feature the prospect of Roger Federer winning his 14th major title to equal Pete Sampras’ record.
Federer lost in the semifinals at Melbourne Park to Novak Djokovic this year, then fell to Rafael Nadal in the final at the French Open and Wimbledon. Federer beat Andy Murray in the U.S. Open final for his 13th major.
Djokovic and Maria Sharapova are the defending champions. The tournament is set for its first night women’s final on Saturday, Jan. 30, following a move it made in 2005 to a night men’s singles championship on the final Sunday.
Tennis Australia chief executive Steve Wood said the tournament hopes to improve on this year’s attendance figure of 605,000, which bettered the 2007 total of 550,000.
“We think we’re in great shape,” he said.
Here we are in the second week of the US Open and getting down to the big money rounds. There has been so much happening at the US Open im not even too sure where to start. However, here is the wrap up from the tournament.
In the men’s draw they are down to the last two quarterfinal matches in which we will see Roger Federer take on unseeded Gilles Muller from Luxembourg. While in the other quarterfinal left it will see Americas last hope for the men’s title Andy Roddick, take on Novak Djokovic. The two players who have already won their quarterfinal matches and will meeting the first semifinal will be top see Raphael Nadal and he will play young Brit Andy Murray. Murray has produced some great performances in the tournament so far and he has never been this deep into a Grand Slam, so will be interesting to see how he fares against Rafa.
While on the Women’s side of the draw they have made their way to the semifinals. The first semi will see Dinara Safina head off against Serena Williams (who only just beat her sister in the previous round). While Elena Dementieva will play Jelana Jankovic in the other semi. While I’m not surprised to have seen Ana Ivanovic lose in the second round, it is just poor to think that it took her a really long time to get to the top and when she has been there she just hasn’t performed at all in the Grand Slams. I can’t see Ivanovic staying in the top 5 for too long if she continues to play the way she is playing, maybe too much promotional work is getting to her.
Overall there has been a lot happening on and off court at the US Open, which is normally the case cause it is heading towards the end of season. The more I see the US Open, I really just think they are losing touch with the other 3 Grand Slams. Australian Open is the players favourite, French Open is the one the Europeans want to win, Wimbledon is the big one, US Open just has the most money!
Im currently sitting here watching Rainer Schuettler play Raphael Nadal in the semi final of Wimbledon and it really made me think about the tennis tours and levels of tours within the game. At the start of Wimbledon Rainer the 32 year old thought he was going to get through a round or two, and he was so confident that this was going to happen that he booked himself in for a challenger event in Cordoba. As it turns out he is now on center court in the Wimbledon semi final with a packed house watching him play, but if he did end up going to Cordoba he would have had 200 people watching him play, but only if he made the semis there. That also being said Rainer is going to receive a minimum of £187,500, but the Cordoba challenger has prize money in total of $100,000 but for all players.
So there is a huge difference between the level of tournaments, but the players arent really that different in level. Should there be a much smaller gap between prize money between tournament levels? Additionally, the ITF really need to think of ways to promote the sport, not just at the Grand Slam level, but more importantly at a basic tour level and also onto the Challenger and Future tournaments
Cordoba Challenger Results
