The Queen’s Club Championships will deliver a 35% increase in prize money for its women’s tournament when the grass-court event returns to west London in June, organisers have confirmed. The boost, announced by the Lawn Tennis Association, marks the most significant financial uplift for the WTA 500 event since women’s tennis returned to the historic venue last summer after a 52-year absence.
The rise pushes the total purse for the women’s draw closer to parity with the men’s ATP 500 tournament that runs the following week, though a gap remains. Last year’s champion, Tatjana Maria, who became the oldest first-time WTA 500 winner at 36, banked £142,000 for her run to the title. The 2026 winner will collect a significantly larger cheque under the new structure, with first-round losers also receiving a meaningful uplift.
Closing the gap on equal pay
The LTA has framed the increase as a step on a defined pathway towards equal prize money at the combined Queen’s fortnight. Chief executive Scott Lloyd said the governing body had committed to matching the men’s purse “within the next few years”, with the 35% jump representing the largest single-year increase the women’s event has received.
The numbers tell the story of how far the tournament has travelled in a short space of time. When Queen’s added the women’s WTA 500 in 2025, it did so with a prize pool of roughly £1m. The men’s ATP 500 at the same venue paid out close to £2.1m. June’s edition will narrow that disparity, though full parity is not expected until 2027 at the earliest.
Players have welcomed the move. Britain’s Katie Boulter, a finalist at the inaugural women’s event, said the announcement showed “the women’s game is being taken seriously at one of the most historic venues in our sport”. Emma Raducanu, who reached the quarter-finals last year before her run was ended by Maria, has already confirmed her entry for 2026.
Why Queen’s matters on the grass calendar
The Queen’s Club tournament occupies prime real estate in the tennis calendar, falling in the fortnight between Roland Garros and Wimbledon. For two decades it operated as a men’s-only event, the ATP’s premier grass-court warm-up. The decision to add a women’s draw in 2025 was driven by both the LTA’s equality strategy and commercial demand from broadcasters and sponsors who wanted a combined product.
The 2025 edition delivered on that promise. Centre court sold out for every session, the women’s final drew a peak BBC television audience of 2.4 million, and the LTA reported a 41% increase in commercial revenue across the combined fortnight compared with the previous men’s-only format. Those numbers gave the governing body the financial headroom to commit to the prize money rise.
Grass-court specialists have a particular reason to celebrate. The surface offers a narrow window of preparation for Wimbledon, and the addition of a top-tier WTA event in London gave players such as Maria, Boulter and Diana Shnaider an extra premium opportunity. Previously, the leading women’s grass warm-ups were Berlin and Bad Homburg, both held in the same week.
A wider shift in women’s tennis
The Queen’s announcement comes against a backdrop of broader investment in the women’s game. The WTA confirmed in March that combined 1000 events would reach prize money parity with their ATP equivalents by 2027, and the four Grand Slams have paid equal prize money since Wimbledon followed suit in 2007. The pressure point has shifted to 500-level events, where disparities of 50% or more were still common as recently as 2023.
The LTA, which also runs Eastbourne and Birmingham on the women’s grass swing, has used Queen’s as the flagship for its strategy. Birmingham’s prize money rose by 18% in 2025, and Eastbourne, which moves to a WTA 500 designation alongside its existing ATP 250 in 2026, will receive a comparable boost.
- Queen’s women’s prize money up 35% for June 2026
- Tatjana Maria defends her title as the inaugural champion
- LTA targets full prize money parity at Queen’s by 2027
- Tournament drew peak BBC audience of 2.4m in 2025
For the players walking on to the Andy Murray Arena in June, the practical impact is straightforward: a deeper, more lucrative draw at a tournament that already ranks among the most prestigious on the grass calendar. For the women’s game more broadly, it is another marker on a road that, even five years ago, looked considerably longer than it does today.
Sports journalist and editor at SportsPortal.net. Covers cricket, football, Formula 1, tennis, and basketball with a focus on how global sports connect with Pakistani audiences. Follows the PSL, Pakistan national cricket team, Premier League, and major international tournaments. Has reported on sports for digital audiences since 2021.
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