NEW YORK: This year’s US Open will be the richest Grand Slam tennis tournament in history after organisers on Thursday announced prize money for the event had been increased to $57 million.

The US Tennis Association said the winners of the men’s and women’s singles titles at the tournament will receive a record payday of $3.85 million while the men’s and women’s doubles champions would receive $740,000.

The purse is an eight per cent increase over 2018 prize money, and enables the US Open offer the highest payouts for each round of any of the four tennis majors.

Over the past four years, payouts for first round losers have increased by 47 per cent, while players eliminated in the second round of the 2019 US Open will receive $100,000.

“The US Open prides itself on offering the best tennis players in the world the richest total prize money in our sport,” USTA chairman Patrick Galbraith said in a statement.

The US Open is also to make a $1 million contribution, split evenly between the ATP Tour and WTA Tour to help fund transition programmes for players leaving the sport.

“We strive to be innovative, and feel that our new contribution of $500,000 to both the ATP’s pension plan and the WTA Tour’s transition programmes for players will go a long way toward the long-term financial well-being of all of our sport’s athletes,” Galbraith added.

This year’s US Open takes place at Flushing Meadows in New York from Aug 23.

Published in Dawn, July 20th, 2019