By the time the organizers of the U.S. Open told the world that it too would be expanding to a 15-day event, the only appropriate reaction seemed to be: of course it is. There’s a Grand Slam arms race under way, and keeping up — whatever that means — comes at a price.

Costs rise every year. Tennis players expect more prize money. So if a major like the U.S. Open sees a pot with tens of millions of dollars right there for the taking, given all the additional tickets, media rights increases and maybe another 25,000 Honey Deuce cocktails to be sold at $23 (£18.50) a pop at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, it is minded to make a move. If previous attendance figures are a guide, about 75,000 fans will buy tickets for that first Sunday.

All this points to one inevitable outcome: The Australian, French and U.S. Opens and Wimbledon all want to be three-week tennis festivals, rather than two-week tournaments.

“Basically they already are, at least three of them,” said one longtime tour executive, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect relationships in tennis. They, like other figures at the top of the ATP and WTA Tours, are not exactly thrilled by the big-footedness of the Slams. Taking over another week in the tennis calendar inevitably diminishes any tour event happening then.

That is a side issue in the big four’s world, in which the U.S. Open’s decision to expand brings the Grand Slam scramble for supremacy into stark relief: one of these is not like the other. Every move to expand in Melbourne, Paris and New York intensifies the pressure on SW19 in London, the home of the world’s oldest and wealthiest major tennis tournament and in so many ways the sport’s gold standard.

Wimbledon remains the most lucrative of the Grand Slams alongside the U.S. Open, with both bringing in roughly $500million (£402m) in revenue last year. The other Slams bring in $300-400m each season. But Wimbledon has little chance to grow unless it can seal approval for an expansion and construction plan that would add 39 grass courts and permit it to host qualifying on site, which has garnered healthy opposition in the surrounding community.

“It’s important that Wimbledon maintains its place at the pinnacle of the sport,” Debbie Jevans, chair of the All England Lawn Tennis Club (AELTC), said at a hearing on the project last year.

“The other slams are three-week events. We’re a two-week event.”

Jevans’ comment and all these bids for expansion reveal a plain truth about the Grand Slams. They work together to sustain their primacy in tennis, ahead of the men’s and women’s tours, but they also compete vigorously with one another: for attention; for media payments from television networks; for sponsorships with luxury brands in watches, cars, liquor and champagne; and for a rarefied group of fans who travel the world to attend the sport’s biggest events.

During the awards ceremony at the Australian Open last month, a woman shouting the names of the two women who have accused men’s singles runner-up Alexander Zverev of domestic abuse was heard above the congratulations. But the organizers of the Grand Slams no doubt heard something else when Zverev, who has denied all allegations against him, turned to Craig Tiley, the tournament director and chief executive of Tennis Australia.

“He’s putting on the best tournament in the world,” said Zverev, who is a member of the ATP Tour’s Player Advisory Council. Wimbledon, long held as the major title every player truly craves, may have taken serious notice.

Nearly every player still has Wimbledon in high esteem, and it’s worth noting that Zverev isn’t a huge fan of grass-court tennis. But three years ago the Australian Open completed a sprawling new facility for the players under Melbourne Park, filled with lounges, treatment rooms, workout areas and even sleeping pods where they can nap.

Not to be outdone, the U.S. Open last year unveiled plans for a new three-story structure it is calling its Player Performance Center. It will move the cramped facilities now wedged underneath and alongside Arthur Ashe Stadium to a new building a few steps away. Roland Garros, which is wedged into a narrow section of a park on the western edge of Paris, also went the underground route with its modernized player facilities when it revamped Court Philippe-Chatrier, its main stadium. Players value prestige, but they also value comfort.

The French Open also caught up on real estate when it added its third show court, Simonne-Mathieu, for 2019. Though six of Wimbledon’s courts can be cast as “show courts,” its expansion plan includes an 8,000-seat stadium that would become its official third stadium after Centre Court and Court One, a tacit appreciation of another area in which it has ceded ground.

Melbourne did roofs first. Roland Garros, which only put a roof on Philippe-Chatrier in 2019 and on Suzanne-Lenglen, its second court, in 2024, was the first mover in the expansion to a 15-day main draw, way back in 2006. The night session is the star attraction in Paris, New York and Melbourne, even as the appetite for elite tennis in nightclub hours wanes. Wimbledon has an 11 p.m. curfew.

And show up to Roland Garros, the BJKTC or Melbourne Park the week before the main draw and it can feel like the tournaments have already started. Some 75,000 people pack the field courts in Paris, roaring for their countrymen with all the zest, and whistles and renditions of La Marseillaise they bring to the main event.

That may sound like a big number, but the Australian Open’s rebranded ‘Opening Week’ attracted nearly 117,000 this year, a big part of its Grand-Slam total attendance record of more than 1.2 million. The U.S. Open’s ‘Fan Week’ brought in more than 216,000 last year, helping the tournament surpass 1 million for the first time. The French Open’s attendance was 675,000.

Wimbledon accommodated just 526,000 fans last year. The grounds at the All England Club are much tighter than those of the other Slams, especially Melbourne Park and Flushing Meadows. The separate night-session tickets create a second wave, of not just tennis attendance but fresh faces looking for food, drinks and merchandise. The fans that attend the qualifying tournaments in Melbourne, Paris and New York pay nothing to get in, unless they buy a relatively inexpensive ticket for the charity exhibition matches that take place during the evenings. For now, organizers see those weeks as something of a gateway for future purchases. There’s plenty of food and drink to be consumed.

How long that lasts isn’t clear. Just as it became hard to resist the money attached to the 15th day of a main draw, charging something nominal to attend the qualifying tournament, which could easily be marketed as something more substantial than that, may become difficult to pass up.

Which brings things back to Wimbledon, the place where every tennis conversation starts and ends.

Tim Henman, a Wimbledon semifinalist and AELTC board member, last week told and a small group of other reporters that a 15-day man draw was out of the question. The tournament only recently expanded to 14 days from 13, eliminating the rest day on the middle Sunday. The grass, Henman said, can’t take yet another day of tennis.

Hence the need, according to the AELTC, for the 39 new grass courts on the old Wimbledon Park golf course, which would almost triple the size of the grounds at the Wimbledon Championships. That would allow Wimbledon to move its qualifying tournament from nearby Roehampton, which can accommodate just 14,000 fans across four days, weather permitting.

The expansion, on property the AELTC already owns, would take about 10 years. A local group, Save Wimbledon Park, is trying to stop the project, arguing it will add another week of mayhem to their neighborhood after a decade of construction. There were covenants attached to the land when the AELTC purchased it guaranteeing use only for public recreation — even though the land at the heart of this development was formerly a private golf course. Promises are promises and contracts are contracts, the protestors say.

That was long before Wimbledon had this modern tennis arms race to contend with.

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.

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