Lower-ranked players have been asking for early rounds prize money in the most important tennis tournaments to increase for a long time, and some huge progress has been made. The world No. 2 Rafael Nadal, who earned $103 million career prize money tournaments so far, said: ‘The sport is not fair for everyone, and the real thing is the life is not fair for everyone.

That’s the real thing. It’s difficult to fix this at all, but at some point, in my opinion, from the players’ side, at some point we created jobs on our sport in the last 10 years, that’s my feeling, and that’s the great news.

The sport is not only bigger if the top guys win a lot of money. Is bigger if more people live from the sport too. My feeling is that’s happening more today than ten years ago. That’s good news, and tournaments understand that it’s important to pay more in the first rounds, in the qualifiers, and the lower tournaments are growing, too.

So the tour in general terms I think is improving, and being honest. Countries like this one and Tennis Australia by itself helps a lot to make that happen.’

The Spaniard stormed into the Last 16 after defeating Australia’s Alex de Minaur. Now, he will be facing Czech Republic’s Tomas Berdych for a chance to reach the quarterfinals.

By defeating Minaur, he has completed an Aussie hattrick where he faced three Australians and downed all three. His first victim was James Duckworth, followed by Matthew Ebden and now, Alex de Minaur.

Nadal was told by reporters that he might be public enemy number one after his demolition job. However he said, “What do you mean, popularity going down? I don’t think so, no, no. My feeling is people here understand the sport. People here love the sport. “I think Australians don’t see me like an opponent. I have been always friend from Australia.”