LONDON, April 28: Wimbledon's prize money will rise 4.7 per cent this year but the organisers of the world's most prestigious tennis tournament will continue to pay the men's champion more than the women's winner.The men's champion will receive 435,000 pounds sterling ($727,000) and the women's winner 391,500 pounds. Total prize money will be 7.21 million pounds.
The Women's Tennis Association (WTA) has called for many years for Wimbledon to pay men and women equally like the US Open. But Wimbledon chairman John Curry said there was greater interest among spectators in the men's game and less depth in women's tennis.
``We can't on a commercial basis meet their demands on this,'' he told a news conference.
The rise of new young generation, led by the Williams sisters and World Number one Martina Hingis, has provoked worldwide interest in women's tennis and fuelled demands for parity with the men.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
