French Open prize money to increase by 9.5%

French Open prize money to increase by 9.5%Image source, Getty ImagesImage caption, Coco Gauff (right) beat Aryna Sabalenka to become women's champion at last year's French OpenByRussell FullerTennis correspondentPublished12 minutes agoPrize money at this year's French Open will increase by 9.5%, with the largest rises directed towards the qualifying competition and the early rounds.The singles' champions will each take home 2.8m euros (£2.44m) - an increase of 9.8%.There will be nearly 13% more prize money for the qualifying rounds, and main draw first-round losers will receive 87,000 euros (£75,700) - an increase of 11.5%.Players are currently campaigning for greater prize money at the Grand Slams, plus a contribution to their welfare benefits.The percentage increase offered by the French Tennis Federation (FFT) is nearly twice as high as last year, but does not match the rise given in the past year by the US Open and the Australian Open.Prize money at last year's US Open rose by 20%, with the figure for the Australian Open nearly 16% higher.'We're looking how to help the tennis ecosystem'The women's world number five Jessica Pegula is one of the players at the forefront of the campaign for a greater contribution from the Slams.Speaking to BBC Sport at Indian Wells last month, the American acknowledged recent improvements, but argued it would help to spread the increased rewards more widely."I do think the US Open stepped up a lot in that aspect," Pegula said."But even in that case all the money went towards the end of the tournament and what we're looking for is how we help the ecosystem of the sport and maybe that's spreading it out in the lower rounds a little bit more evenly."There are a lot of people that are trying to survive so I think it's helping seeing them contribute to that and not just solely to the person that wins the tournament."We love playing the Slams - I don&#x...