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The women’s event at Queen’s ceased in 1973, with the Eastbourne tournament founded the following year and becoming a fixture of the women’s grass court season.<\/p>\n
The revived Queen’s will run as a WTA 500 tournament and as part of a two-week event with the traditional men’s competition.<\/p>\n
Unlike Wimbledon, which has awarded prize money equally between its men’s and women’s draws since 2007,<\/a> the men’s tournament will have a substantially higher prize pot of $2.5m (\u00a32.1m), than the $1.1m (\u00a30.9m) available to the women.<\/p>\n This is set by the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) and the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) Tours and applies to all their 500 level events.<\/p>\n “The LTA (Lawn Tennis Association) definitely would love to hit that marker well before the WTA Tour but to do that we need a successful event, we need people to come and watch and to get excited about it,” Robson, who has also worked as tournament director at Nottingham, said.<\/p>\n “It doesn’t start at all or nothing. We have to build the way that the tournament’s run and eventually get to that marker of equal prize money but it’s something I’m all for as a former player.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n