The All England Lawn and Tennis Club, which hosts Wimbledon, announced Friday that it will pay prize money to all players that would have qualified for the canceled tournament.
Pulling from a pot of £10 million ($12.6 million), the organization will distribute prize money to the “620 players whose world ranking would have enabled them to gain entry into The Championships 2020 by direct acceptance into the Main Draw or Qualifying event.”
Here’s how players will be paid:
256 players who would have competed in Main Draw Singles will each receive £25,000 ($31,576) 224 players who would have competed in Qualifying will each receive £12,500 ($15,788) 120 players who would have competed in Main Draw Doubles will each receive £6,250 ($7,894) 16 players who would have competed in the Wheelchair events will each receive £6,000 ($7,578) Four players who would have competed in the Quad Wheelchair events will each receive £5,000 ($6,315)
“Immediately following the cancellation of The Championships, we turned our attention to how we could assist those who help make Wimbledon happen. We know these months of uncertainty have been very worrying for these groups, including the players, many of whom have faced financial difficulty during this period and who would have quite rightly anticipated the opportunity to earn prize money at Wimbledon based on their world ranking,” Wimbledon chief executive Richard Lewis said in the statement. “We are pleased that our insurance policy has allowed us to recognise the impact of the cancellation on the players and that we are now in a position to offer this payment as a reward for the hard work they have invested in building their ranking to a point where they would have gained direct entry into The Championships 2020.”
Wimbledon had been scheduled to run from June 29 to July 12, but was canceled in April due to the coronavirus pandemic. This marked the first time the tournament had been canceled since World War II in 1945 and the first time it has not been played in peacetime since 1877.
So far, Wimbledon is the only tennis major to be canceled this season. The Australian Open was completed as scheduled ahead of the pandemic shutting down the sports world. The US Open remains scheduled for its planned run of Aug. 31-Sept. 13. The French Open is slated to start seven days later on Sept. 20, after being moved from its customary position as the sport’s second major of the year.