Top seeded Simona Halep and No. 10 seed Sloane Stephens will face off in the 2018 French Open final on Saturday. Halep, 26, is looking to capture her first ever Grand Slam title, while Stephens, 25, is hoping to secure her second overall major and first French Open.
And a record €2.2 million (about $2.6 million) in prize money is on the line. That's about a 5 percent jump from what last year's winner took home. Saturday's runner up will earn a cool €1.12 million (about $1.3 million).
In 1968, the start of tennis' professional era, French Open champ Nancy Richey was supposed to take home 5,000 francs — the equivalent of about about $7,100 today, the New York Times reports — but since she was still an amateur, she couldn't claim the prize money.
"The USLTA [United States Lawn Tennis Association] kept us players from receiving prize money that year; they were holding on to the amateur game to the last breath," Richey told the Times. "I had to play for a $27-a-day per diem from the USTLA, and I had a hard time getting it from them." In other words, the French Open champ collected $27, her daily allowance, for winning the Grand Slam.
