Italian Open

We're talking about Monaco.

We're talking about the Italian Open, and they're saying this proudly in the spirit of Billie Jean King and Martina and Gra- Saying, "Now we've finally reached this moment."

It's a fundamental principle, is what they've said.

But it's a fundamental principle of their tour is that women should get paid the same as men.

But right now, obviously the WTA have announced that the 1000s next year are all gonna have equal prize money.

Of course, that was the Italian Open, that was the Canadian Open, and the Cincinnati tournaments that have now come into line with equal prize money.

That was almost inevitable, you felt.

What, what I think has made really great sense is the fact that the top 50 players, uh, this is one of the other changes, will now only have to play four of the kind of WTA 500 tournaments rather than six.

Yeah, the WTA 1000 tournament will now match the prize money that the men get.

So this is all the combined Masters events that we see, like Canadian Open, Cincinnati, the Italian Open.

Historically, obviously, the men's prize money is higher than the women's, but the WTA have announced that... from next year the women will get the same prize pot which is good news on the surface of course they should be getting the same but the WTA recently there was a lot of reports that they're basically at risk of kind of going bankrupt they're not getting the financing they need And so we're wondering how on earth they're going to fund this increase in prize money to match the men's prize pot.

Chris, I think you're a bit concerned as to how sustainable this is actually going to be.