WTA, pioneering players work out pension packages

Ashleigh Barty took a pro-event record $4.42 million haul for her efforts in winning the 2019 WTA Finals singles title. That's an outlier in the data in this still-young century, and in the preceding decades, as her foremothers in tennis can attest.

A recent New York Times story showed that players who competed in the 1970s and '80s are working together on financial solutions for those former pros whose work and aspirations set the stage for today's winning ways and oversize checks.

Some former players credit WTA CEO Steve Simon for the monetary recognitions of their contributions, saying that the recently enacted payouts and ongoing conversations and proposals would not have happened without his, well, buy-in.

While the WTA Legacy Fund has been established, Simon notes that the situation is tardy in terms of creating a pension for affected players.

Getting this far with the project was kicked off in 2016, when Billie Jean King and Rosie Casals—part of the Original 9 who formed what soon became the WTA that's well known today—and others met with Simon in Indian Wells.

Some specifics of who has already gained (via October pays) or yet stands to benefit, from Miller's Times reporting:

The working group's next stop: A return to approaching the Grand Slam events, in pursuit of what might become a $25,000 payout per player. Former pro Trish Bostrom told Miller that the likes of King, Casals, Chris Evert, Evonne Goolagong, Tracy Austin, and Martina Navratilova and Monica Seles—the latter two less affected or unaffected by the lack of pension as pros who competed after 1991—had put their relationship capital and clout behind a letter sent to the major events.

For some people in this world, activism never ends. This can be a decidedly good thing, in the pursuit of fair play, for both the future and the retroactive good.