A cool $71.5 million was paid out in this years Australian Open but there were a number of changes to how this was split across the different rounds compared with the 2020 tournament. We look at how the coronavirus pandemic has impacted on the prize money.

Australian Open 2021: prize money breakdown

As Naomi Osaka and XXX raised aloft the famous trophy this weekend, they were unlikely to be caring about the reduction in prize money that went with the victory. Their goals in tennis were for trophies and records more than the riches that followed.

The truth is, however, that the drop in the financial prize for the winners was more to do with a change in the share of the total pot available rather than as a direct consequence of the economic impact of covid-19. In fact, the overall prize money of the tournament was up slightly on last year, 0.7% to be precise.

Both Osaka and XXX walked away with the tidy sum of $2.75 million for winning the tournament while runners-up Jennifer Brady and XXX took $1.5 million each. Those figures show a 33.3% and 27.4% reduction on the equivalent takings from the 2020 Open.

Those that saw an uplift in rewards were those that came through the first round of qualifying (an increase of 25% to $25,000) and those that lost in the first round of the main draw (a 15% bump to $100,000) and there were generally improvements across the lower part of the competition.

As the Open director Craig Tiley said before the start of the competition, the focus was on the whole tennis community and not only those that reach the ultimate champions.