A glittering career spanning more than two decades, which included 20 Grand Slam titles and countless records, was enough for Roger Federer to earn a place in the coveted International Tennis Hall of Fame. However, another member of the club, Billie Jean King, called out the Swiss for his neutral stance on a sensitive issue like the gender pay gap in the sport.
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“I wish he would fight for equality more because I keep saying, You have two boys and two girls! You have equality in your household!” said Billie Jean King at the Hall of Fame ceremony, per Racquet. “You think he’d ever do anything to rock the boat? He doesn’t want to. I’d want to make money, too.”
King is not far off the mark, as Federer, even though he was known for his outrageous shot-making on the court, was often neutral about this topic.
Federer was part of the ATP Player Council and, as the President of the council, worked with the Grand Slams for better prize money, something that was beneficial for the WTA players as well. However, back in 2016, when the pay gap controversy was at its peak, the former World No.1 had a balanced view on the issue, pointing to the history and structure of individual tournaments as factors that could make equal prize money more complicated outside the Slams.
“I’m all for equal prize money,” said Federer back in 2016. “But then you have to look at the history of each and every event, where it came from.. Some tournaments were a men’s tournament, then the women joined or vice versa, it was a women’s tournament and we joined them.”
At Wimbledon in 2012, when asked to respond to fellow player Gilles Simon’s remarks that men should earn more than women, Federer avoided wading into the subject, saying it was “just a matter of who believes what” and effectively an unresolvable debate.
Then, in a 2018 interview with The Sunday Times, Federer pushed back against suggestions that he was not “pro-women,” pointing to his close relationships with his mother, his wife, his sister, and his two daughters as evidence of his support for women. But at the same time, Federer acknowledged that certain events have legitimate reasons for weighting prize money toward the men’s side.
He offered a more substantive comment in January 2019 at the Australian Open, after Serena Williams called for male players to do more to support equal prize money throughout the year. Federer said that when he had fought for prize-money increases in the men’s game, he understood it would translate dollar-for-dollar into gains for women’s tennis too, and added that the WTA Tour was still lagging behind and could use support.
Federer’s famous on-court rivals, such as Andy Murray and Rafael Nadal, had more explicit stances on the gender pay issue. While the Brit was an ardent supporter of the cause, the Spaniard cited commercial and TV viewership numbers to support his arguments against it.
It’s no surprise that Billie Jean King has asked Federer to be more vocal about equal pay, as the American legend was the main force behind the creation of the WTA, helping make the U.S. Open the first Grand Slam to award equal prize money to men and women in 1973. Modern greats like Venus Williams helped end Wimbledon’s status as the last Grand Slam holdout on equal prize money, with the grass-court Major deciding on equal pay in 2007, due to the pressure created by Williams.
As it stands now, the Grand Slams and the joint 1000 events, such as Indian Wells, Miami, and Madrid, do have equal prize money for both ATP and WTA players. However, prize money is not yet equal across all combined events. In 2026, the Cincinnati Open’s ATP tournament offered a larger total prize pool than its WTA counterpart, while Rome also maintained different prize-money structures for the men’s and women’s draws.
As for Federer, while the Swiss was guarded in his response to the equal-pay question, he did have his say on other matters throughout his career. Back in 2019, after ATP board member Justin Gimelstob pleaded no contest to an assault charge and resigned from his position, Federer said he was happy with the decision and believed Gimelstob needed to step away.
Despite winning the 2012 Madrid Open on blue clay, Federer had expressed concerns about the experimental surface. The Swiss carried obvious weight with his words, as the event reverted to red clay from the next edition onward.