PARIS — Total French Open prize money will be about 7% higher this year than it was for the last pre-pandemic tournament in 2019 — with an increase of 35% for players who lose in the first round of singles — but the singles champions will each receive slightly less than they did three years ago.
The French Tennis Federation announced Wednesday that it will hand out 43.6 million euros (about $46 million) in 2022.
The clay-court Grand Slam tournament begins on May 22, with Novak Djokovic and Barbora Krejcikova as the reigning champions.
The winners of the two singles trophies this year will each earn 2.2 million euros, down from 2.3 million euros in 2019.
Compared with last year, when the coronavirus pandemic led to limits on attendance at Roland Garros, total prizes are increasing from 34.4 million euros and 1.4 million euros for the singles champions.
First-round losers in singles will receive 62,000 euros this time, a jump from 46,000 in 2019.
In all, when compared with 2019, the singles purse goes up nearly 1.5% and the doubles prizes rise by about 6%.
Players in qualifying rounds will see an increase of about 65% in available money over 2019, and 30% over last year.
The federation said the increases for first-round singles matches and qualifying are “designed to help the players who have suffered the most” financially because of the pandemic.