Men’s and women’s singles champions at Wimbledon to each earn record $1.54 million

Wimbledon champions to earn record $1.54M each

WIMBLEDON, England — The winners of the men’s and women’s singles titles at this year’s Wimbledon tennis tournament will each earn a record $1.54 million.

The All England Club said Tuesday it has increased the winners’ prize money by 150,000 pounds ($231,348) to help offset the decrease in the value of the British pound against the dollar and euro.

The increase means that the men’s prize money has doubled over the past 10 years.

“We need to offer prize money that is commensurate with the tournament and competitive in the market,” All England Club chairman Tim Phillips said. “It shows the championships are successful and I think it shows we care about the players.”

Total prize money will be 13.725 million pounds ($21.1 million), an increase of 9.4 percent from last year.

Income for 2010 may dip slightly with the daily capacity down from 40,000 spectators to 37,500 because of the construction of a larger No. 2 Court.

“This is pretty marginal,” All England Club chief executive Ian Ritchie said. “There’ll be a small drop in the numbers.”

Organizers have also adapted the sliding roof over Centre Court to allow it to be deployed at each end to shade spectators from strong sunlight.

The roof, designed to avoid the backlog of matches that have affected previous rainy tournaments, debuted last year and was used to facilitate a late finish for a fourth-round match between Andy Murray and Stanislas Wawrinka.

“It was clearly a huge success last year,” Ritchie said. “Last year was a classic example of that was what the roof was designed to do and it delivered a match that might otherwise have not taken place.

“We’ve always seen it as an insurance.”

But organizers remain insistent that they do not have plans to start regular night matches.

The June 21-July 4 championships take place while many sports fans will be focused on the soccer World Cup in South Africa, which runs June 11-July 11.

The All England Club has no plans to show matches on big screens around the championships.

“This is a tennis tournament,” Phillips said. “If you want to watch football, you can go to South Africa or watch it on television.”

But Ritchie said things could change.

“There is no plan to show football but we’re not going to say ‘never,’” he said.