Background Tennis's
Open Era, in which professional players were allowed to compete alongside amateurs, began in 1968. The first Open Tournament was the
British Hard Court Championships in
Bournemouth. Later that year at the first Open Wimbledon, the prize fund difference was 2.5:1 in favor of men. Billie Jean King, a high ranking tennis player in the late 1960s who won several titles, won £750 for taking the title, whilst
Rod Laver won £2,000. The total prize pool of both competitions were £14,800 and £5,680 for men and women, respectively. The tournaments that did not want to provide prize money eventually faded out of the calendar, including the US Eastern Grass Court circuit with stops at
Merion Cricket Club and
Essex county club. There were two professional tennis circuits in existence at the start of the Open Era:
World Championship Tennis (WCT), which was for men only, and the
National Tennis League (NTL).
Ann Jones,
Rosie Casals,
Françoise Dürr, and Billie Jean King joined the NTL. King was paid $40,000 a year, Jones was paid $25,000, and Casals and Durr were paid $20,000 each. The group played established tournaments, such as the US Open and Wimbledon, and also organised their own tournaments, playing in the South of France for two months. The
International Tennis Federation (ITF) then imposed several sanctions on the group. Women were not allowed to play in the
Wightman Cup in 1968 and 1969 and the
USLTA refused to include Casals and King in their rankings for those years. In 1969, ratios of 5:1 in terms of pay between men and women were common at smaller tournaments. By 1970, these figures had increased to up to 12:1. The
International Lawn Tennis Federation (ILTF) had begun dropping several women's competitions from the tournaments it presided over, having sanctioned 15 men-only tournaments in 1970, all of which had previously been combined events. and
Bobby Riggs in 1973, the same year King founded WTA The turning point for women's pay inequality came prior to the 1970 US Open. The
Pacific Southwest Championships directed by
Jack Kramer, had announced a 12:1 ratio in the prize money difference between what men and women would win. This tournament provoked the top 9 female tennis players—Billie Jean King,
Julie Heldman,
Valerie Ziegenfuss,
Judy Dalton,
Kristy Pigeon,
Peaches Bartkowicz,
Kerry Melville Reid,
Nancy Richey, and
Rosie Casals, They did not play in the Los Angeles tournament and instead wanted to create their own tennis tournament. Several female players contacted
Gladys Heldman, publisher of
World Tennis Magazine, and stated that they wanted to boycott the event. Although Heldman advised against it, she did help them put together their own tournament in Houston which would not take place until after the US Open. The
1970 Houston Women's Invitation for nine women players was formed. Heldman was friends with Joseph Cullman, CEO and chairman of Phillip Morris, who secured the new tournament. The tournament was a success and later sponsored by
Virginia Slims in 1971.
WTA Tour The WTA was founded at a meeting organised by Billie Jean King, a week before the
1973 Wimbledon Championships, as a direct response to the formation of the
Association of Tennis Professionals a year prior. This meeting was held at Gloucester Hotel in London and featured 70 other female players, where King was named the first president of the organisation. In 1976,
Colgate assumed sponsorship of the circuit from April to November, with
Avon replacing Virginia Slims as the sponsor of the winter circuit the following year.
WTA Tour tournaments •
WTA 125 tournaments 30 events with prize money around US$115,000. Since 2012 (number of events varies each year; in 2018 there were ten tournaments: four in United States, two in China and one each in Croatia, France, India and Taiwan), with prize money for the four events in United States at US$150,000 and at the other events at around US$125,000. Ranking points are also available at tournaments on the
ITF Women's Circuit organized by the
International Tennis Federation, which comprises several hundred tournaments each year with prize funds ranging from US$15,000 to US$100,000. == Management ==