Tennis Mailbag: Breaking Down the Players’ Media Protest at Roland Garros

As it is written, Wednesday is mailbag day.

• A reminder that Sports Illustrated now has a free tennis newsletter. Subscribe here.

• Here is a column in praise of Gaël Monfils, who played his final French Open match on Monday.

• A reminder: Served’s “Quick Served” podcast episodes are coming to you every day from Roland Garros.

• In non-tennis news, betting on wars has created a new kind of insider trading:

Onward …

With match results coming fast and furious (invalidating or postponing questions), let’s start with the players’ pretournament protest, which generated a lot of chatter.

Let’s break it down:

• The players held a minor protest last Friday, limiting their media availability at Roland Garros to 15 minutes.

• This move was largely symbolic. It was enough time to avoid a fine, and many players exceeded their 15 minutes. We are far from boycott territory here; a nuclear option is unlikely. And yet, this was a rare (and, I’d argue, quite effective) show of player unity.

• Why 15 minutes? Symbolism. According to the players’ group’s math, they are paid 15% of tournament revenue by the majors. They have a model to graduate that share to 22% within the next five years.

• Why 22%? That is—again, by their math—what the joint ATP/WTA Masters Series events pay from their gross revenues.

• Virtually every top player is on board here. Note that this has nothing to do with the PTPA, the organization that filed a federal lawsuit against the tours last year. This is a different effort, led by Larry Scott, the former head of the WTA and an ATP player before that (and the Pac-12 commissioner more recently).

• Almost all of the top players (Novak Djokovic being a benign exception—more on him below) are together on this. Aryna Sabalenka and Jannik Sinner, the current No. 1s, are active in this group. I’m told that Sinner—hardly a confrontational type—has felt especially disrespected. He was among the top players who met with majors in 2025. I was told the tournaments said all the right things in the meetings, but when the French federation not only ignored the players’ model but actually decreased the players’ share of the revenue split from 2025 to 2026, that spurred the players to action.

• Pause to note the difference between raw numbers and percentages. Yes, the prize money goes up each year, sometimes by more than 10%. Yes, players make roughly $100,000 for losing in the first round. Singles winners make between $3 million and $5 million for title runs. That sounds like a nice chunk of change. Then you see that, say, Wimbledon, while increasing prize money, has actually reduced the percentage of gross revenue that goes to players, and the players’ position becomes more understandable.

• Why are the players proposing a five-year timeline? The players realize that they’re not going to go from 15% to 22% in one year. That’s untenable. They also want to lock in a revenue-sharing model before the 2031 Wimbledon expansion, which could easily push combined tournament revenues over $1 billion.

• Back to the protest. Did it work? Absolutely. By the end of the weekend, Roland Garros had promised that, before Wimbledon kicks off, they will present a counterproposal for 2027. Wimbledon and the U.S. Open asked for meetings with the players’ group during the second week of Roland Garros. Wimbledon will announce its 2026 purse in early June, so the All England Club is hoping to avoid the Roland Garros public relations bruise. Then comes the U.S. Open, which is perhaps most vulnerable. The USTA recently embarked on an $800 million “historic” construction project. (You find nearly $1 billion for more suites and club seating, but you can’t pay us, the talent, more?) And the tournament’s mixed doubles event is low-hanging fruit for angry players to target.

• It didn’t go unnoticed that Djokovic, who, of course, cofounded the PTPA, was absent from this protest, but don’t read too much into it. Djokovic was asked about it at his press conference and was quick to express his support for the players. I don’t know this for a fact, but consider this an informed opinion. Djokovic essentially thinks: It’s someone else’s turn. I went down this road. I’ve invested my own money, I’ve fought the good fight. I’ve banged my head against the wall of the establishment for years. I support you in theory, but at this stage of the game, I need to ration my physical energy and my psychic energy. I’m exhausted, kids! Someone else take the baton.

Q&A

I’m sorry, but the multiple rows of empty prime seats at Roland Garros are just unacceptable. WTF?

EvDog

• The grounds are beyond packed, but you wouldn’t know that watching at home, because the prime seats behind the baseline are nearly empty.

Usually we joke that the lunch is sacrosanct here, but this year, it’s the heat. It’s unendurable to sit outside, unshaded, and watch tennis for hours.

Roland Garros refusing full electronic line calling in 2026 because “the clay leaves marks” is the most aggressively French thing imaginable.
Every other major tournament: “We have millimeter-accurate technology.”
The French Open: “Pierre will inspect the dirt.”

Marty, A

• The conventional wisdom was that when tournaments claimed they were dissatisfied with the precision of the technology, what they really meant was that they were dissatisfied with the price of the technology. But the price of technology has dropped, as happens with technology, and I suspect electronic line calling is now no more expensive than calling lines with humans.

Hi Jon; One diplomatic controversy that seemed forgotten during President Trump’s recent visit to China: What ever happened to Peng Shuai? My web searches uncovered little recent news. Any insight into where she is and how she is doing?

Ted Cornwell, Minneapolis

• This remains a great stain, a mystery and a missed opportunity in tennis. Usually, when I pose this question, the answer starts with “I hear,” implying no one has had direct contact. We’re nearly five years in, and a once prominent athlete has either disappeared or been disappeared. If this were a looming, uncomfortable issue anywhere else in the world, wouldn’t the national federation trot her out, make her an ambassador at a tournament, and have her present the winner’s trophy?

Jon,

Is it just me or are players barfing on court more than they used to? When [Pete] Sampras yakked into the flower pots at the [1996] U.S. Open it was a huge deal! But now I’ve seen [Frances] Tiafoe, Djoker, and now Sinner juke their guts on the court, all fairly recently. What’s the deal?

• Indelicate as this topic is, I don’t mind it because it shreds the stereotype that tennis is some wimp sport. We know, of course, it is the opposite. I recall Ons Jabeur once holding a match point at Wimbledon, but first up-chucking into the storm drain. Not looking unmoored by it, she then proceeded to close out (former Wimbledon champion) Garbiñe Muguruza. Afterward, she was asked about it and basically explained that it’s how she offloads (no pun intended).

Tennis, especially at the top level, is brutal. It’s a sustained, physical battle in heat, requiring supreme conditioning. And there’s the overlay of mental stress of an individual sport.

Hey Jon,

Have you checked out the WTA website lately? WHAT. A. MESS. You cannot find a draw to save your life. There are no less than two pop-ups on the home page. The groupings of videos are given random titles like “WTA Spotlight”
and “Must See Action.” But then there's basically an almost identical grouping of videos titled “Must-Watch Stories.” Did the WTA actually pay for that website or did they get the website donated from a disreputable source? Asking for a friend.

Thanks.
Charlie, DC

• There’s so much to like about the WTA. Maybe next week I’ll discuss the WTA leading the women’s sports revolution. (To pick a name, Hailey Baptiste, will make more in one tournament than most WNBA players make in a season, even after this collective bargaining agreement. Why aren’t we talking more about tennis’s place in the women’s sports revolution?)

But yes, let today’s discussion be about a website that embodies one of the few universally agreed-upon themes of a polarized world. It’s awful. It diminishes women’s tennis. It is not worthy of the players. From a media perspective, simple information is hard to access. There are maddening glitches. There is no excuse for this.

ON THAT NOTE, HAVE A GOOD WEEK, EVERYONE, AND ENJOY ROLAND GARROS!

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