Australian Open tournament director Craig Tiley says the tournament will wait until next week, after he meets with ATP Players Council representatives, to decide how to divide up the tournament’s 2013 prize money. The Australian Open announced a 15 percent increase in prize money to $31.1 million, said to be the largest increase in the history of the sport. It’s been reported that players had threatened a potential boycott of the event if prize money wasn’t significantly increased.
Tiley will meet with ATP Players Council president Roger Federer and vice president Eric Butorac next week at the Shanghai Masters. Butorac told TENNIS.com last month that the players were looking for something in the range of a 20 percent increase. This year, the players also asked for most of the prize increases from the other three Grand Slams to go toward the lower-round cashes, and their requests were met.
“The rise] could be anywhere from 30-60 percent in some of the rounds,” [Tiley told reporters. “We’d be looking at buoying up the first round, but particularly the second, third and fourth rounds. That’s been the players’ beef, and we’ll address that. We'll just work on getting the balance right; we know what total we're dealing with now.”
Tiley also believes that the size of the increase will stop the talk of a boycott.
“Absolutely,” he said. “The players have got 30 million reasons now to come to the Australian Open in January, and our prize money from the last five years, we’ve increased by $10 million, we’re continuing to lead the way in that. Any time we are faced with a conversation or threat around the Australian Open, we’re going to respond, and we’re going to take it seriously. But we’ve just accelerated earlier; this has been part of our ongoing plan to increase prize money, and I think it’s really important to note that this is about an investment in our future.”
Upon hearing the news, Sergiy Stakhovsky, another Player Council representative, tweeted: <em>I think good news came from players favorite GS down&under @tennis_australian.</em>
However world No. 2 Novak Djokovic, while pleased with the increase, told reporters in Beijing that the issue isn’t dead.
“It’s a step forward, definitely,” Djokovic said. “They have clearly shown understanding for players’ demands and what the players had to say, so that’s really nice to see. It’s great news for every player that plays this sport, but it's not over yet. Obviously there are other Grand Slams that need to react, and we are still in negotiations and we are still doing it behind closed doors.”