Golden Gate Open: Challenger Event/WTA 125 Combine For Equal Prize Money

Lani-Rae Green

The Golden Gate Open is making history in its first year as an event.

Held at Stanford University in California, the combined ATP Challenger Tour and WTA 125 event is the first equal prize money tournament at that level.

Following the trail blazed by Billie Jean King 52 years ago when she pioneered the first all-women’s tennis tournament in San Francisco, the Golden Gate Open is hoping to set a new standard for gender equity in tennis. Part of the reason why they are able to host a combined event with equal prize money is because of tournament director Pablo Pires de Almeida and his team.

“I really felt a lot of support, even though there was a lot of pressure on the shoulders. Honestly just to see it in action today, it’s beautiful,” Pires de Almeida said. “Just to see the men and women playing side-by-side, the night matches. We sold out our Saturday qualifying, over 2,000 tickets were sold and players came up to me saying, ‘We have never seen that many fans at a Challenger 125 for qualifying’. I mean that’s unbelievable.”

Pires de Almeida has emphasised providing opportunities for tennis players from all aspects of life. A former University of San Francisco head coach, he started Battle of the Bay Classic with his friends in 2009. That tournament brought Division I college players to California Tennis Club in San Francisco and partnered with the ATP Challenger Tour to offer wild cards to some of the event’s best performers. In 2015, the Battle of the Bay Classic became a co-ed event.

When Pires de Almeida transitioned from USF, he wanted to create a men’s and women’s combined pro event in his stomping grounds of Northern California. His goal was to offer an equal-pay tournament.

^{Aleksandar Kovacevic in second-round action at Stanford. Credit: Lani-Rae Green}

“In tennis, you have a unique opportunity because you have players playing at the same time, next to each other, same scoring, same court size and all the same conditions,” Pires de Almeida said. “In a Grand Slam, you could say, ‘Yeah everything is the same except for the scoring, best-of-five sets [for men] and best-of-three [for women].’

“But for most tournaments around the world, everybody is playing the same thing. So when you look at the tournament, you’d think it’s the same, but then you look at the numbers and you’re like, ‘Oh wow, there’s a big difference there.’ I think it’s a little bit of the standard you’re going to put on it and how much you’re really going to enforce it and create that as a requirement.”

The Golden Gate Open will also hold a Gender Equity Panel Event on Thursday to further the discussion on gender pay equity in sports, with former WTA pros Cici Bellis and Rosie Casals among those in attendance.

^{Top seed Tamara Korpatsch in action at Stanford. Credit: Lani-Rae Green}

Though Pires de Almeida is handling the day-to-day tasks of the tournament, he credits his team, family, sponsors, ATP, WTA, and tennis fans in the Bay Area for their support.

“I think it’s a testament to the people who are backing this event and the area that we live in,” Pires de Almeida said. “These men and women are playing as hard they can, travelling all over the world, trying to do it the best they can. I think we should just have that standard and that’s the future of the sport.”

Player Reactions
Bradley Klahn: “It’s awesome to play here on campus at Stanford again. The setting, the history of this school, and the tennis tradition here. It’s great to see them bring professional tennis [here]. To be the first Challenger to offer equal prize money to the men and women really speaks to the values that Stanford holds, continuing to push equality.”

Dalibor Svrcina: “I think this is a very nice place to play a Challenger 125 before the US Open. The university and the hotel are very nice. I think it’s very cool that it’s a combined event and even better for women, that they can have equal prize money. It is a good change for tennis.”