The 300th-ranked player struggles to make ends meet," Gauff explains the letter sent by top 10 players to the Grand Slams
In a rare moment of unity on the professional tour, Coco Gauff, the 2025 Roland-Garros and 2023 US Open champion, has shed light on a confidential letter addressed to the Grand Slam organizers. The content? A clear demand: that tennis's wealthiest tournaments invest more in the sport's future, not just in the headline acts, but all the way down to the lower ranks.
While the Grand Slams generate hundreds of millions of euros per edition, the percentage paid out to players, particularly those who don't make it past the early rounds, remains lower than that of the ATP and WTA. A paradox that the 21-year-old American decided to denounce alongside her top 10 male and female peers, united behind this unprecedented letter.
"As we already know, the Grand Slams are the ones that generate the most wealth, but when you look at the percentage of their revenue that goes into the prize money, it's not the same as in the WTA and ATP, despite the fact that they generate less than the Grand Slams. It's very important to change this, and we're not just talking about increasing it for the champion, but also for the players competing in the qualifiers.
The 200th or 300th-ranked player in the world struggles to make ends meet, which isn't common in other sports, especially with the revenue generated by tennis. I wanted this initiative thinking about the long-term health of the sport, because I don't know if we'll achieve a real result while I'm still playing. But what is certain is that I want to leave this sport in a better state than when I started.
All the top 10 female players are in agreement. I think this is the first time on the tour that we've managed to get something signed and have the top 10, both women and men, agree. It's a big step. I know there are conversations, and I hope we can reach an agreement in the near future. We worked discreetly before the letter was made public, at least on the women's side, with the Players' Council.
The letter wasn't supposed to be leaked, even though we signed it knowing it probably would be. I wish things didn't have to be resolved in the public sphere, because it's better for the players not to have to answer questions about it. That's the reality of our world, even though it's true that for every major change, public pressure is sometimes necessary. The Grand Slams have been working with us behind the scenes to find a solution, but I don't know what's going to happen.
Hopefully that trend isn't consistent everywhere. But if it is, professional tennis players and organizations better do something to attract young people to the sport.