It was a momentous milestone, brought about in no small part by an equally momentous champion, Billie Jean King. In 1973, the US Open became the first of the four Grand Slam tournaments to offer equal prize money to men and women competitors, a pioneering move that shook the sport and began to reshape it toward a more equitable future.
As we this year celebrate the 50th anniversary of this important US Open milestone, USOpen.org will feature a series of reflections upon other major markers of equality in tennis across this past half-century, each of which helped to nudge the sport forward toward the grand goal of a more level playing field for all. In this installment, we look back on notable 'firsts' and breakthroughs for women tennis players in regards to their on-court earnings.
The fight for equality is measured in milestones, the firsts, the groundbreakings and the breakthroughs, that come to define a movement.
In tennis, it started with $1. That was the contract that the first nine women—now known as the Original 9—signed in 1970 to create a women’s professional tour, the precursor to the WTA. The moment has been commemorated in an iconic photograph that shows the women all holding up their $1 bills, but Billie Jean King, the guiding light for equality in women’s tennis, said the jubilation of the photo belied the immensity of the moment.
“You’re going to think we were all smiling, giggly and happy,” King said during a 2018 panel discussion celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Original 9. “But deep down I think we were all, at least for me personally, I’m going, ‘This is a real moment of truth for us because we may or may not make it.’ But I knew we were doing the right thing for the future generations, and that’s really what we cared about.”
Indeed, future generations have benefitted from their courage, building from that moment in 1970 and reflected in growing purses—and recognition—at events worldwide.
In 1971, the Virginia Slims Circuit held 19 tournaments, awarding $309,100 in prize money. King would eclipse $100,000 in prize money that season, making her the first woman to do so and more than doubling what she made at the dawn of the Open Era (in 1968), when she was a member of the National Tennis League, the women’s professional circuit at the time.
The WTA was founded in 1973, providing the women an established platform to grow the game. And the US Open followed suit that year as the first Grand Slam to award equal prize money, with both the men’s and women’s champions pocketing $25,000.
In 1979, the Avon Championships became the first tournament to offer $100,000 to its champion, and by the following year, total prize money in women’s tennis reached $7.2 million globally—a figure that grew to $10 million in 1983, $23 million in 1990, $50 million in 2001, $85 million in 2010, $139 million in 2018, and more than $175 million today.
The first tournament to offer $1 million in prize money was the 1990 season-ending tour championships, a figure that grew to $14 million by the 2019 WTA Finals, with champion Ashleigh Barty earning $4.42 million, the largest prize money earnings in professional tennis history at the time.
Of course, Barty’s is just one of many individual milestones established by the legends of the game. In 1976, Chris Evert became the first woman to eclipse $1 million in career prize money. Ten years later, Martina Navratilova became the first to surpass $10 million, the first of many milestones for the 18-time Grand Slam singles champion. In 1982, she won the Wimbledon title to overtake both Evert and Jimmy Connors as the all-time tennis prize money leader, the first time that title belonged to a woman. That same year, Navratilova became the first woman to win more than $1 million in total prize money in a single season, and in 1984 she became the first to surpass $2 million in earnings in a single season.
Navratilova’s namesake, Martina Hingis, was the first to eclipse $3 million, in 1997. Kim Clijsters passed $4 million in 2003—buoyed by a $2.2 million payout as the winner of both the US Open Series and the US Open, at the time the single largest payday in tennis history—and Justine Henin topped $5 million in 2007. That set the stage for Serena Williams, who won more than $6 million in 2009 and more than $10 million in 2013, finishing her standout season with $12,385,572 in total prize money, a record that still stands.
As with the individual season records, the trajectory for career prize money is dominated by familiar names. After King and Evert, Navratilova held the record for career prize money from her 1982 Wimbledon triumph until 1989, when she ceded the crown to Steffi Graf, at $20.3 million.
All of which held until Serena’s run of dominance. In 2009, the American became the first professional female athlete to surpass the $23 million mark in a single professional sports league, a record she has since stretched to its current total of $94,816,730, which more than doubles her sister, Venus, who stands in second place at $42,406,778—a far cry from the single dollar that started it all.
