5 SETTER: Novak Talks Retirement, Cincinnati Stacked, WTA's New Policy, & More

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**Mike** (1:32)
What's up, Chuckers? Producer Mike here. This is the Served Five Setter, your weekly roundup of all things racket sports. Five stories in 10 minutes or less. But before we get into it, please hit subscribe on YouTube. Give us a follow on your favorite podcast platform so you can stay up to date on all things Served. We really appreciate the love and support. That said, today is July 24th, 2026, and here is what we've got for you. Novak's comments on retiring, the WTA's new protocol, Cincinnati is stacked and DC is open for biz.
But first, news broke this week that the French Open has become the first Grand Slam to offer players a share of tournament revenue. The exact model the players have been fighting for in one form or another for years. Recent months have seen a coordinated push from the top players to pressure the four slams on a list of demands, with revenue sharing at the top of it. I hopped on earlier with Jon Wertheim and asked him what's going on with this announcement and what the players have ultimately been after with all of this.

**Jon Wertheim** (2:35)
They want a percentage of gross revenue. So when tournaments increase in scale, the players will see in that upside. The tournaments have been pretty good about the wage increases, Wimbledon 20% year over year raise in the prize money. US Open is supposed to do something similar, which will put them over $100 million. As far as consultation and how tournaments are run, tournaments are all for that. We'd love to have player input, whether it's tennis balls or whether it's roof policy. We'd love player input. We would do that tomorrow. A little more grudgingly, but I think they're going to do it. The tournaments, I think the US Open, probably the first, will make contributions to pension plans, no problem. The big sticky point, though, is percentage of gross revenue and having some sort of tie in. Wimbledon was very adamant.
It makes no sense was how it was termed. Someone at the All England Club told me even more directly, listen, we've been running this tournament pretty well for more than 100 years. We're not going to change our business model because a couple of top players are upset. It looks like the US Open is a non-starter there as well. The interesting news this week, though, is that the French Federation that runs the French Open, Roland-Garros, they actually put out a proposal that did have a way that players could have some revenue sharing. That puts pressure on these other events. One thing to know about this, Mike, is that these events, because of collusion, they can't confer with each other. It would make sense for everyone to sit in a room. That is not happening. Not only that, these events really can't even communicate with each other. These are four separate negotiations that Larry Scott, who's representing the players, is having with each of the four majors.