The best tennis players in the world descend this week on Rome, where men and women will play in the same best-of-three-sets format, on the same courts and in the same tournament, which sells one same-price ticket for both men’s matches and women’s matches.
There is one massive difference between the two competitions, however: Men will compete for $8.5 million while the women will compete for $3.9 million.
The huge pay discrepancy comes after two months of tennis that included three similarly significant tournaments in California, Florida and Madrid that featured men and women competing for the same amount of prize money. Men and women also get paid the same at the four Grand Slam tournaments, where men play best of five sets and the women play best of three.
But not in Rome at the Italian Open. And not yet in the Cincinnati suburbs at the Western & Southern Open. Or in Canada, at the National Bank Open, where the men and women alternate between Toronto and Montreal each year.
Angelo Binaghi, the chief executive of Italy’s tennis federation, announced recently that the Italian Open was committed to achieving pay equity by 2025 “to align itself with other major events on the circuit,” even though an expanded format will bring in additional money this year. For the next…
