‘As world No 1, I have to stand up and fight’: Sabalenka leads players in grand slam protest

Aryna Sabalenka insisted the player push for a greater financial contribution from the grand slams is primarily focused on improving the welfare of lower-ranked players as the world’s elite advanced with their eve-of-tournament protest at Roland Garros. “I feel like the whole point here, it’s not about me,” Sabalenka said. “It’s about the players who are lower in the ranking, who are suffering.

It’s not easy to live in this tennis world with that percentage that we are earning. “As the world No 1, I feel like I have to stand up and to fight for those players, for lower-level players, for players who are coming back after injuries, the upcoming generation. I feel like our point is pretty clear and pretty fair to everyone. That’s what we are all about.” The top players opted to escalate their frustrations with the grand slams during media day at Roland Garros by refusing to participate in all but the mandatory media interviews. Players usually allocate 60-90 minutes of their time for various interviews with broadcasters and written press, photoshoots and social media games, but the players planned to cap their media duties at 15 minutes, a symbolic figure chosen to represent the roughly 15% of average revenue allocated to player prize money by the grand slams. They agreed to split their time between a 10-minute press conference and a five-minute interview with the host broadcaster, their two mandatory duties. A number of top players have been in dispute with the grand slam tournaments for over a year after sending a signed letter requesting the grand slams to allocate more of their tournament revenues to prize money, contribute to player welfare initiatives, such as a pension, and to create a grand slam player council so that the players have a greater say in the event. The participants included the No 1s Sabalenka and Jannik Sinner, plus the top-10 players Iga Swiatek, Coco Gauff, Jessica Pegula, Mirra Andreeva, Félix Auger-Aliassime, Ben Shelton, Daniil Medvedev and Taylor Fritz. Andrey Rublev, the men’s world No 13 and a member of the association of tennis players’ (ATP) advisory council, said: “It’s not only about the money and stuff like that. “Just to give you an example: when you send the mail, no one responds to official mail for months. It’s like, ‘Come on, guys.’ We are together, or you completely don’t care that much that you cannot even communicate.” There were no dramatic walkouts or players abruptly ending their press conferences mid-sentence. Many certainly spent more than 10 minutes in their press conferences and 15 minutes overall.

Key points

• It’s not easy to live in this tennis world with that percentage that we are earning.
• “As the world No 1, I feel like I have to stand up and to fight for those players, for lower-level players, for players who are coming back after injuries, the upcoming generation.
• I feel like our point is pretty clear and pretty fair to everyone.
• That’s what we are all about.” The top players opted to escalate their frustrations with the grand slams during media day at Roland Garros by refusing to participate in all but the mandatory media…
• Players usually allocate 60-90 minutes of their time for various interviews with broadcasters and written press, photoshoots and social media games, but the players planned to cap their media dutie…