BREAKING NEWS: Wimbledon Announces Prize Money Increase for 2026 | Quick Served

**Andy Roddick** (0:00)
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I know after two weeks of Roland Garros, you're probably sick of us, and you're saying, just go away. We're not going to. We have a very special show today, a couple of very special guests. Deborah Jevans, the chair of the All England Lawn Tennis Club. Joining us, Jamie Baker, the tournament director of the championships. He now runs the tournament. Deborah runs the club. But Jamie, you tried to beat me at Wimbledon one time, and I didn't appreciate it.

**Jamie Baker** (0:57)
I remember mentioning that to you a few months back at the US. Open, and I definitely had to jog your memory that the match took place. But for me, it was definitely a career highlight, which says a lot.

**Andy Roddick** (1:09)
Thank you for joining us. Chairwoman, a lot of conversation this morning. You announced your prize money package today. There's a lot of conversation around tennis, right? And like most things, nuance is probably required.
From where I sit, I'm just interested in, how do you get to prize money payouts? What are the factors involved when you release a prize money package? And I got to be honest, this is pretty cool that we have you both on Served just having a casual conversation.

**Deborah Jevans** (1:50)
It was a cool moment for us. No, thanks Andy. And it's likewise cool for us.
I'm not sure Wimbledon is always cool, but this is cool. So thank you for inviting us. And also giving us that opportunity because there's been so much talk hasn't there around prize money and percentages. And when we looked at our announcement this morning, which was for a 10.7 million pound uplift, heading to 64.2 million as a quantum for prize money. It was just sort of important for us to chat to you and say, we start that process at the beginning of the year. We sit down and we look at our long-term financial plan. And we actually look at the three buckets. We look at prize money, we look at our investment in infrastructure and facilities and services to players, and the investment in the grassroots. And we take those three things, and then we make decisions to ensure that we continue to be, A, a successful and sustainable business, but B, we do take on board what the players say, listen to them, and that's what we've got to being able to, by running a successful business, giving a big uplift of 10.7 million pounds, which is a big chunk of money.

**Andy Roddick** (3:08)
Yeah, it's definitely not nothing.
The landscape of tennis right now, and I try to explain this to people, and again, splashy headlines seem to dominate conversations now, and then the actual conversations seem to die in paragraph five or six. I'm not asking you to respond to the first part of this question, but there is litigation from one of the groups who have said that they represent players. It's a class action suit, which means any player could be a plaintiff. I'm guessing that makes communications a little bit tougher. There is now a new group that's being represented by Larry Scott. It does involve the top players. They actually acknowledge that they're a part of this group, which probably has to help a little bit.
How does this get solved where everyone feels kind of good about the situation, especially considering the challenges legally with speaking back and forth right now?

**Deborah Jevans** (4:10)
Andy, what you've said, you've highlighted one of the challenges in our sport. Because if you think back to when you played, Jamie played, you had the ATP and the WTA, and they were player bodies as well as during the tour. You then have the PTPA that came into the mix, and recently you have Larry Scott that's been hired by the WTA and the ATP, albeit those same entities have their own player boards with player reps on.
One of the challenges of our sport is that there isn't a single body for anybody to actually talk to, and if you add on to that the PTPA lawsuit, that by definition, which you say is a class action, that represents all of the players, as you rightly point out, it's a class action, that inhibits the dialogue that we're able to have anyway, and what we can say in talking about the future of the sport and the players concerned. And I would like nothing more than to be able to sit down with the players, work with the players, because we listen to the players. And Wimbledon has always respected and put the players' interests first. That's what we do here as a club. And Jamie can talk to that. But we start from the field of play and we work out. And I would love nothing more than to be able to have dialogue with one group of players about the future of the sport. But we're limited in what we can say because of this lawsuit.