Why are there obvious differences in prize money between men and women at the same level or even at the same event?

In professional tennis, the distribution of prize money between male and female players has always been a sensitive issue. It is a matter of gender equality, which in the West is a test of political correctness and an impenetrable red line that no one dare lightly touch.

The Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon and US Open, the most influential and prestigious tournaments in tennis, have achieved equal prize money for men and women. But equality was not achieved overnight. It was debated and fought over a long period of time. Wimbledon, for example, was the last of the four Grand Slams to achieve equal prize money for men and women until 2007.

Gender equality is one of the most widely debated topics and is often the hardest to reach consensus on. I have found that people often start arguments before they have reached an agreement on the concept of equality between men and women, and such arguments tend to be "chicken and duck talking and duck talking".

As far as professional tennis is concerned, some people believe that equal prize money for men and women is only possible if men and women have done the same work, that is to say, "equal pay" is only possible "equal pay". At the current Grand Slam tournament, men's singles are best of five sets, and women's singles are best of three sets. In this way, it used to be "gender equality" for men to earn more money than women, but now it is "gender inequality" for men and women to earn the same money at grand Slams -- the men who work more are obviously losing out.

Thus, proponents of equal prize money for men and women will argue that women are biologically inferior to men and that "unisex workers" should not simply mean that both men and women should play the same game. Opponents will argue that prize money should be decided by the market, and that men's games generally attract more spectators and sell more tickets, so whoever earns more should share more.

Why are there obvious differences in prize money between men and women at the same level or even at the same event?

In the interest of peace and political correctness, the Grand Slams now offer equal prize money and equal points for men and women. However, the tour does not have the same "prize money and points" as the Grand Slam. In fact, the vast majority of tournaments do not have numerical equality between men and women, either in prize money or points.

Take the Italian open jointly organized by men and women as an example. The men's tournament is at the ATP1000 level, and the women's tournament is at the WTA1000 level. It seems that both tournaments are at the 1000 level, but the difference in prize money between men and women is very obvious.

The prize money for men and women in this year's event is in euros. For the same round, women earn less than half as much as men.

The men also scored higher than the women in the more important second rounds of this year's event. However, male and female scores belong to two different systems, without crossover, there is no significance of comparison. But when it comes to money, men and women can be compared side by side.

Why does the Italian Open differ so much in terms of points, especially prize money, between men and women when it is nominally the same tournament at the 1000 level?

The biggest reason is that historically there has been a clear difference between the men's and women's events, with the men's events being given priority over the women's events in their respective systems for a long time.

To be specific, the Italian Open men's tournament is one of the nine ATP Masters tournaments in the world, ranking second only to the year-end finals in the ATP tournament system; The Italia Open women's tournament was formerly the WTA Super Five Tournament, ranked below the year-end finals and the Crown Jewel tournament in the old WTA tournament system. Although the WTA merged the Super Five and crown Jewel tournaments into the WTA1000, the status and influence of the original tournaments have not changed much.

It is worth noting that Indian Wells and Miami are also co-hosted 1000 level events, but the prize money and points for both events are identical. For example, this year's ATP1000 Miami men's singles champion, alcalas, earned 1,000 points and $1,231,245. Svartek, the WTA1000 champion in Miami, also earned 1,000 points and $1,231,245 in prize money.

At the same 1000 level tournament, Miami not only achieved the same prize points for both men and women, but also achieved much higher prize money for each round than the Italian Open. There are two reasons for this. First, the women's event in Miami was formerly known as the WTA Crown Jewel, which is a higher level tournament than the Italian Open. Second, the Miami tournament is bigger and more profitable than the Italian Open, with the former able to offer players bigger prize money.

Compared with the Italian Open, the China Open in Beijing is the complete opposite, the women's tournament points and prize money are higher than the men's. For example, Tim, the 2019 China Open champion, has 500 points and $733,990 in prize money. Women's champion Naomi Osaka has 1,000 points and a prize of $1,523,265. The number of points and prize money for the women's singles is about twice that of the men's singles, which is exactly the reverse of the Italian Open.

The main reason for this is still the difference in status and level between men and women. Although a co-hosted event, the men's tournament in Beijing is at the ATP500 level, while the women's event was formerly known as the WTA crown jewel tournament, now known as the WTA1000. In addition, there is a significant difference in the number of signings for men's and women's events. The number of signings for men's singles is 32. In women's singles, the number is 64, and you need to win six matches in a row.

To sum up, the reason for the difference in bonus points between men and women in the same event is mainly caused by the difference in status and level of the event itself, which is easy to understand and accept.

Different race classes naturally lead to different prize money and points, so the next question is, will there be any difference in prize money and points for different races of the same class?

The answer is, the same level of events, the points are basically the same, but the prize money is not exactly the same, some even very different.

Alcalas, for example, won the ATP500 in Rio in February, earning $317,400; The prize money for winning the ATP500 Barcelona in April is €467,150. The points are the same, but the prize money is markedly different.

Generally speaking, points are determined by the ATP based on the level of the tournament, but prize money is mainly determined by the tournament organizers. The specific amount of prize money will be determined by the event parties based on the ATP guidelines and the event's historical tradition, scale and influence as well as its profitability.

Therefore, we are talking about tennis bonus equality between men and women, should do their homework first, familiar with each station level of men's and women's competitions, historical evolution, current influence of scale and profitability, on this basis, through the calm objective analysis and comparison, to find an objective and fair point of view, rather than being dominated subjective mood likes and dislikes.