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LONDON (AP) — No. 1 Jannik Sinner limited a media appearance Saturday as a prize-money protest by top players continued at Wimbledon but he deflected questions about it, saying he wanted to “talk about tennis.”
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The grass-court Grand Slam increased prize money by 20% after top players began their protest at the recent French Open, arguing that they deserve a bigger share of revenues.
The protest involves players limiting their media appearances, meaning they’ll only talk for 15 minutes after each match during the first week of Wimbledon.
Sinner’s appearance Saturday clocked in at about 10 minutes, 30 seconds. A Wimbledon host introduced him and said he would be timing his session.
The defending champion cited improvement in negotiations.
“It’s getting better even though we are not (at) the point where we are 100% happy,” the Italian said. “At the same time we are seeing improvement.”
Sinner said it’s “not only about the money,” citing the need for improvements in player welfare.
But he declined to engage in a question about Wimbledon’s offer to work on creating a player council.
“I just think it’s better if we don’t discuss here, I don’t like to talk about this at the moment,” he said.
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The four-time Grand Slam champion also didn’t want to address whether the players feel they are closer to a solution or a boycott.
“I think we talked enough about this at the moment. The Grand Slams know what we ask, and then (we’ll) see how that goes,” he said.
“Again, I’m here now to talk about tennis.”
The protest began at the French Open, where players complained the total prize money only made up 14.3% of the clay-court tournament’s revenue.
Wimbledon responded by hiking its total prize money — with the singles champions to get 3.6 million pounds ($4.75 million) each.
On Wednesday, a statement by an advisory firm representing the players said the “direct action protest” would continue during the first week at the All England Club.
The statement said the players’ share of Wimbledon’s projected revenue this year was 14.4%, which would be below the 14.9% share they received 10 years ago.
The All England Club had said it was “surprised and disappointed by this action.”
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AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis