Not since 1973, when Edward Heath was the UK prime minister, Suzi Quatro topped the charts, and the first series of Are You Being Served? had just ended, has women’s professional tennis graced the prestigious Queen’s Club in London.
But after 52 years it will return with a bang on Monday, with 11 of the world’s top 20 among those battling it out in a WTA 500 event for a prize fund of £1m, a week before the annual men’s event takes place. Those playing include theWimbledon champions for 2024 and 2022 respectively, Barbora Krejcikovaand Elena Rybakina,the Australian Open champion, Madison Keys, and Britain’s own US Open champion from 2021, Emma Raducanu.
The tournament also comes as British women’s tennis is rising and spreading its wings. When the latest world rankings come out on Monday, there will be three players – Raducanu, Katie Boulter and Sonay Kartal – in the WTA top 50 for the first time since 1986.
No wonder, then, that the LawnTennisAssociation believes a revived Queen’s women’s event can be a catalyst for even brighter days ahead.
“It is a seminal moment, given it’s the first time we’ve had a women’s tournament in London for more than 50 years.” says Chris Pollard, the LTA’s managing director of commercial and operations. “In many respects it is long overdue that we’re allowing the women to compete at this brilliant venue in the heart of London. But there is overwhelming excitement from the players for next week.
“And this new event at Queen’s is really important to us in other ways,” he adds. “It creates the platform and visibility – the shop window, if you like – that reminds people of what an amazing sport tennis is. And we see that uptick when we look at the data, with more people than ever picking up rackets in those weeks through the Queen’s fortnight and with Wimbledon to follow.”
According to the LTA, 5.8 million adults in Britain now play tennis at least once a year, a figure that has risen by 51% in the past six years. Meanwhile the number of children playing at least once a month now stands at 1.57 million, a rise of 7% this year.
And while tennis has long been viewed as a middle-class sport, the LTA and the government have spent £31m in recent years to refurbish more than 3,000 public courts in parks across the country.
Last month, most of Britain’s top players also wrote to the government urging them to back a proposal to develop 40 community tennis, padel and multi-sport hubs across Britain by 2030, which would be covered to allow people to play in all weather.
The hope is that British tennis will soon unearth more talents such as the state-school educated 23-year-old Kartal, who has made a spectacular rise up the rankings over the past 12 months.
“I feel like we have had a lot of players consistently knocking on the door for top 100 for a little while now, so to have the depth to go even further and into the top 50 is a great achievement for British tennis,” Kartal says. “And I think there is the potential to add more than just three players to that list.”
The move to Queen’s has meant the women’s tournament at Eastbourne, which takes place the following week, has been downgraded to a WTA 250 event. However the LTA points out that ticket sales for Eastbourne have remained robust, and it has already sold 50,000 tickets for the women’s tournament at Queen’s – with 55% of them bought by women.
In other words, an extra 50,000 people will watch women’s tennis in the UK this year. “That 50,000 figure puts it in the top three or four stand-alone events in terms of crowd capacities across the WTA tour,” adds Pollard. “And there are still a few tickets available.”
The LTA has also increased prize money for the Queen’s tournament so that the players will be playing for a prize fund of around £1m, rather than the roughly £730,000 they usually do at WTA 500 events. That is still about half what is on offer for the men’s event. However the LTA has pledged to have equal prize money at both tournaments by 2029.
“It is a statement of intent and it underpins our commitment and ambition to really invest in women’s and girls’ tennis, more broadly, and particularly to correct the equal-prize-money challenges that exist across the tour,” says Pollard.
That will be welcome across the game. For now, though, the 32 players are largely focused on becoming the first woman since the Soviet player Olga Morozova to win at Queen’s 52 years ago.
And that includes Kartal. “It’s a tournament that holds a lot of history and a tournament that I’ve watched the men play in,” she says. “So I’m excited that we now get the opportunity to play on that stage too.”