Aryna Sabalenka’s ‘half’ prize money after winning Cincinnati Open as compared to men’s champion Jannik Sinner sparks outrage

Jannik Sinner bagged $1,049,460 in prize money, while Aryna Sabalenka got $523,485, which is less than what the men's runner-up received.

Aryna Sabalenka’s ‘half’ prize money after winning Cincinnati Open as compared to men’s champion Jannik Sinner sparks outrage

Aryna Sabalenka, Jannik Sinner (Images via X)

The Cincinnati Open is one of the few tournaments that doesn’t pay the women players the same prize money they pay the male players. On Monday (August 19), when Aryna Sabalenka won the tournament, she received half of what men’s champion Jannik Sinner got after his win. 

Sabalenka outclassed home favorite Jessica Pegula 6-3, 7-5 to emerge as the champion. In the men’s final, Sinner came out on top of another home favorite, Frances Tiafoe, with a scoreline of 7-6(4), 6-2. 

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Sinner got $1,049,460 in prize money for being the champion, while Sabalenka received $523,485, which is even less than what the men’s runner-up collected. Tiafoe, the runner-up, got the prize money of $573,090. 

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This started a discussion on X. Many felt it was an injustice to the women players, who played the best-of-three all week just like the men but earned less.

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The prize money offered at Cincinnati Open triggers criticism from netizens

Though tennis fans slammed Cincinnati Open for giving less money to the women players, a few however feel that everything just boils down to the fact that tennis at the end of the day, is a business, and the organizers have to keep in mind the economics of it. 

Aryna Sabalenka
Aryna Sabalenka (Image via X)

This is why some feel paying less to women has nothing to do with sexism as more profits come from the men’s section because most tennis fans ‘prefer’ to watch men’s tennis than women’s. Those who do not advocate for equal pay also think it’s unfair to men who play the best-of-five in a Grand Slam but earn the same prize money as women. 

Check out their reactions here:

Though the discussion about equal pay won’t stop until both sides of the party earn the same amount of money in every tournament, Grand Slam events offer equal prize money to both women’s and men’s players. The historic decision was taken in 1973 when the US Open became the first of the four major events to pay equal money. 

It all started when Billie Jean King won the 1972 US Open and was stunned after knowing she earned $10,000, while the men’s champion, Ilie Nastase, bagged $25,000. Thanks to her campaign and incessant efforts for pay parity, the US Open started awarding equal prize money from the next year.

The Australian Open followed suit 11 years later, but in 1996, due to more views on men’s matches, they started paying the ATP players more. Four years later, they again changed their stance, and it hasn’t changed since then. Then in 2007, the French Open and Wimbledon did the same.

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