Wimbledon 2019 prize money: How much will single’s champions earn?

The total amount awarded to players at Wimbledon has more than doubled since 2012

The biggest and best in tennis return to the All England Club as they compete for glory, fame and, of course, riches.

Indeed, the prize money for the 133rd edition of the Wimbledon Championships stands at a staggering £38million, with the winners of the men’s and women’s singles set to take home £2.35m each. First-round losers, meanwhile, will earn £45,000.

The total amount awarded to players at Wimbledon has more than doubled since 2012, but this hasn’t had stopped the game’s biggest names calling for a further increase in the prize money.

Many leading players believe that Wimbledon, the other three grand slams and Masters 1000 events are not paying them a big enough percentage of revenue, which is generally acknowledged to be between 12-15 per cent.

Calls have also been made to correct the distribution of the grand slam prize pots, while Roger Federer is among those who wants more money given to the lower tiers of the sport.

The issue of prize money and distribution is due to be discussed at the men’s ATP player council, which is set to meet at Wimbledon on Friday.

Canada’s Vasek Pospisil, a member of the 10-man player council board, which is led by Novak Djokovic, told the Guardian that the game’s biggest tournaments wield a “monopoly” over the ATP Tour.

“Tennis is a huge business so when you bring a certain value to the table, you need to be compensated accordingly,” he said. “It’s not even so much the dollar figure, it’s the percentage.

“Essentially the tournaments have a monopoly of the whole Tour because they’re in power and they don’t have to be held accountable for anything, so they literally just give what they feel like giving.”

He added: “All I really want is the opportunity to have professional [legal] representation so that we can come to the table, they [tournaments] can make their arguments and they can say: ‘Guys, this is why we can’t give the same to tennis players that the NBA does or NFL does [50%] because tennis is complicated.’

“It might not be 50% per cent, it might be 30 per cent. Maybe it is what it is now, I don’t know. The point is we’re not even given this opportunity.”