Andy Murray ‘totally behind equal prize money’ as glaring Washington Open disparity emerges

Andy Murray feels tennis is heading in the right direction when it comes to equal prize money for men and women, but insists more needs to be done after the gender pay gap at the Washington Open came to light.

Both the ATP and WTA Tours will be in action at the William H.G. FitzGerald Tennis Center this week and both will stage 500 tournaments after the WTA event was upgraded from a 250 contest – although on the ATP side it will be a 48-player singles draw while the women’s draw is a 32-player event.

However, when it comes to money matters there is a big difference in prize money as the men’s prize pool comes to $2,013,940 while only $780,637 are on offer for their female counterparts. Furthermore, the winner on the men’s side will receive a cheque of $353,455 while the women’s winner will only get $123,770.

At Grand Slams, those against equal pay usually argue that men play five sets and women only three, but both men and women play best-of-three sets at ATP and WTA Tour level, leading to further criticism of the pay gap.

Furthermore, only five players in the ATP top 20 are in the men’s draw in Washington while the WTA draw contains eight top 20 players.

The WTA is pushing for that gap to be closed, but many believe it is not coming quickly enough.

Former world No 1 Murray has always been passionate when it comes to women’s rights in tennis and sport in general and he wants more to be done.

“I’m totally behind equal prize money, and I think that it is brilliant that a lot of the tournaments on the tour that we have that, and I think that’s really, really positive,” he said. “I think it is difficult for it ever to become truly equal until the ATP and the WTA sort of actually combine and work together.

“That’s my feeling, because I don’t know what the, you know, like what the threshold for tournaments is, like to become a 500 on the ATP Tour, if the ATP will have their set of rules as to what levels they need to reach from a prize money perspective, and I’m sure the WTA have their own.”

He added: “I always felt like when we’re competing at the same event on the same courts, you know, that we should be playing for, you know, for the same prize money.

“But I think for it ever to become like truly equal, the WTA and the ATP are actually going to have to come together and work as one before that’s the case, because I don’t think it’s that straightforward just now, you know, that both tours have different sponsors, different TV deals, and all of that stuff too.

“There are a few things that still need to change, but I feel like things are going in the right direction, like with the move to, you know, to this event becoming a 500 for both. [It] can obviously still get better.”

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