"We get less than half the first-round loser in the able-bodied tournament" - Dylan Alcott on lack of prize money for wheelchair tennis
Dylan Alcott has lashed out at the lack of prize money in wheelchair tennis. The Australian wheelchair legend, who lost his last competitive match in the final of the Melbourne Slam, was miffed at his runners-up check and used it as an opportunity to air his grievances.
Alcott began his runner-up speech by claiming that he only secured $1,300 in prize money for winning an Australian Open tune-up event. For academic purposes, Rafael Nadal took home a whopping $521,000 for winning the Melbourne Summer Set.
Alcott illustrated how that amount was not sufficient by comparing it with the cost of flight tickets from Europe to Melbourne.
'I won the lead-in tournament here and it was like $1,300. How much is a flight from Europe, $3,000?' Alcott said.
The total prize money for wheelchair tournaments at the Happy Slam is around $200,000, which is not even 10% of the prize pool allocated for ATP and WTA players.
It should be noted that while the men's and women's singles champions in Melbourne will take home a whopping $2,875,000, first-round losers pocketed around $103,000. The prize money for the men's and women's wheelchair champions hasn't' been released to the public.
In his speech, Alcott rued the differences in prize money, but did concede that differently-abled players were much better off in 2022 than they were a few years ago.
"It's not just Australia, it's all around the world. We don't get $3.5m for winning. We get less than half the first-round loser ($103,000) in the able-bodied tournament gets at all Slams," he said. "That's way better than it was. We used to get a firm handshake and a cold Powerade. So it's better, but we've got to keep building it so it gets better and better."
The Aussie did, however, speak in a more positive tone about his own career, asserting how he was "the luckiest guy in the world" to have enjoyed so much success.
"I really am the luckiest guy in the world and I didn't need to win today to realise that. It would've been nice to win but I'm still the luckiest person I've ever met," he said.
A look at Dylan Alcott's decorated career
Dylan Alcott is the most successful quad tennis player of all time with 15 Grand Slam singles titles to his name. He won the Australian Open seven times, US Open and French Open three times each, and Wimbledon twice. He also has eight Grand Slam doubles titles under his belt.
The 31-year-old completed the Golden Slam last year, winning all four Majors, as well as the Paralympic gold medal.