Players competing in the 2024 Cinch Championships this week at Queen’s Club will be toasting record levels of prize money – except, perhaps, the winner of the Wimbledon appetiser.
The overall prize pot has increased 2.76 per cent to €2.26m (£1.91m) from last year, and payouts for those losing in each round from qualifying to the final are up by a similar factor.
But the winner of the Cinch Championships will receive 11.7 per cent less than 2023 champion Carlos Alcaraz, with the top prize falling from €478,000 (£408,000) to €422,000 (£356,000).
All payouts in the doubles competition which runs simultaneously are also up between 2.7 and 2.8 per cent, meaning it is only the singles champion who is worse off in 2024.
It is not a situation unique to Queen’s Club, however. Its rival grass-court tournament at Halle in Germany, which also takes place this week, has exactly the same prize money scheme.
All ATP 500 level events, including Queen’s Club and Halle, award 500 ranking points – hence their categorisation – and have similar, but not identical, pay grades.
The Dubai Tennis Championships, which take place in the Gulf early in the ATP Tour season, paid Ugo Humbert $550,000 (€507,000/£434,000) for winning in March.
ATP 500 events are the fourth most lucrative tier of tournament on the men’s circuit. Grand Slams have the biggest prize funds, followed by the ATP Finals and Masters 1000 events.
Queen’s Club will host a women’s tournament from next year in the week before the men’s tournament. It will have a new name after Cinch opted not to renew its sponsorship.
Prize money at the Cinch Championships has been on a steady upward trajectory for more than a decade, interrupted only by the Covid-19 pandemic.
No tournament took place in 2020 and when it returned the following season prize money was down 38 per cent, but it bounced back to a new high in 2022 and has gone on rising.