Category: Wimbledon

Wimbledon has announced that the Men’s and Ladies’ Singles Champions will each receive £750,000 ($1.48 million), an increase of 7.1% over 2007 (£700,000).

The total prize money will increase by 4.7% to £11,812,000 from £11,282,710 in 2007, while prize money for each of the Men’s and the Ladies’ Doubles events will exceed £1 million for the first time.

Still, the winners of this year’s French Open singles will get the most of any Grand Slam, 1 million euros each ($1.56 million). Roger Federer and Justine Henin won $1.4 million each by taking the singles titles at last year’s US Open. The US Open purse for this year hasn’t been announced. This year’s Australian Open champions, Novak Djokovic and Maria Sharapova, each won A$1.37 million ($1.28 million).

Reminder: Last year marked the first time women and men earned equal prize money at Wimbledon.

Italian sportswear brand Fila is to be the new official footwear licensee to Wimbledon. The five-year contract will see Fila provide a range of dual branded performance tennis and leisure footwear styles, until 2012.

The partnership will mark the launch of the new Fila Alfa tennis shoe that utilizes superior components to ensure step in comfort and lasting performance. The Alfa Wimbledon shoe will be worn and merchandised at The Championships, Wimbledon, and be available with a hard court and grass court sole unit.

Marc Travis, Fila UK Marketing Manager, said, “Tennis has been an essential part of the Fila heritage and this agreement with The All England Lawn Tennis Club is another key partnership that will build the future of the brand within the sport. 2008 marks 35 years of Fila’s involvement in tennis with Wimbledon being the setting for a great number of the brand’s historic memories.”

Robert McCowen, Marketing Director of The All England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club said “The All England Club is delighted to be associated with Fila who have such deep historical roots here at Wimbledon and we are excited about the opportunities for marketing the dual branded Fila/Wimbledon range of shoes internationally.”

Reminder: The most famous women’s tennis players that wear Fila are Russian Svetlana Kuznetsova and Hungarian Agnes Szavay. (via Tennis Served Fresh)

Zimbabwe’s Cara Black and South African Liezel Huber defeated Katarina Srebotnik and Ai Sugiyama 3-6 6-3 6-2 to take the trophy at Wimbledon 2007. The second seeded winners were too strong for a relatively new partnership of their fourth-seeded opponents.

Black and Huber are also 2005 Wimbledon champions, as well as this year’s Australian Open champions.

As for Slovenia’s Katarina Srebotnik and Japan’s Ai Sugiyama, this was the second consecutive grand slam final they lost – at last month’s French Open they were defeated by Alicia Molik and Mara Santangelo.