Officials preach grass roots

Fearing the world's top men will stage their own rival tournament in a dispute over Grand Slam prize money, Wimbledon officials hit back on Monday by saying that the grass roots of the game should come first.

More 80 pros have threatened to create their own tournaments to coincide with the four Grand Slams if they don't get satisfactory increases in prize money.

But Chris Gorringe, chief executive of the All England Club, and chairman Tim Phillips said that, although negotiations would continue with the Association of Tennis Professionals, the main goal was to reinvest profits into tournaments away from the Slams.

"The four Grand Slams are not-for-profit organizations which already invest their profits back into the grass roots of the game, both domestically and internationally through the Grand Slam Development Fund," Phillips said.

"By this means, the four Grand Slams have so far invested US$22 million into the grass roots in the developing world, including other international professional tennis events. At Wimbledon this year, we are offering the players prize money of over ?9 million (US$15.1 million) in total, while the singles prize money alone has been increased by 9.5 percent," Phillips said.

"In Paris, a fortnight ago, the ATP presented the Grand Slams with an increased pay demand of almost 150 percent. This was individually and jointly rejected as unacceptable by the Grand Slams.

"As is customary during the championships we have meetings planned with the ATP, the WTA [women's] Tour and other key constituents and these will give us the opportunity to continue the dialogue on a range of important matters that will be critical to the long term growth of the game as a whole."

The ATP, which has also urged the US Open, Wimbledon, French Open and Australian Open to commit more profits to promotion of the game, health benefits and pension programs, has said that any rival tournaments would raise money for charity.

"It is a disappointing way to start championships by threatening to run a charity event," Gorringe said.

"All the profits from Grand Slams are reinvested into the grass roots. Players are comparing what they receive from Grand Slams with what they see from major team sports in the US.

"It is a different comparison. We need more communications to be carried out to explain what we do with our money. We feel we have been rewarding our players pretty generously over the years."