MONTE-CARLO, MONACO - APRIL 11: Alexander Bublik of Kazakhstan in action against Stan Wawrinka of Switzerland during day two of the Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters at Monte-Carlo Country Club on April 11, 2022 in Monte-Carlo, Monaco. (Photo by Julian Finney/Getty Images)
Alexander Bublik defeated Andrey Rublev 6-3, 3-6, 6-3 in a thrilling finale at the Halle Open – all you should know about the Halle Curse.
Alexander Bublik registered the biggest win of his career so far at the ATP 500 Halle Open on Sunday. The Kazakhstani star pulled off a major upset against No.7 seed Andrey Rublev in a thrilling encounter on grass. It was an incredible title-winning run for Bublik as he got the better of seeded opponents like Borna Coric, Jannik Sinner and Alexander Zverev during the course of the tournament. It was the second ATP tour title for Bublik but fans are suggesting that it’s a bad omen – wondering why?
Well, the trend in the past few seasons doesn’t appear to be in favour of the Halle Open champions. Since 2011, every men’s singles champion of the Halle Open barring Roger Federer, has suffered elimination from the first round of the subsequent Wimbledon edition.
The Halle Open is treated as a warm-up event to the grass-court Grand Slam but this piece of stat shows a different picture and is being referred to as the “Halle Curse”. You could brush it off as a mere co-incidence but Bublik will certainly have to be aware and at the top of his game when he takes the court for his opening round encounter at Wimbledon 2023.
The main draw of the 136th edition of the Wimbledon Champions will begin on July 3 and continue till July 16. It promises to be bigger and better than any previous edition. The All England Club has announced a record-breaking total pot of 44,700,000 pounds for the 2023 Wimbledon Championships.
The Singles’ winners in both the Ladies’ and Gentlemen’s categories will receive 2,350,000 pounds while the runners-up from both of these categories will take home a total of 1,175,000 pounds. The overall prize money on offer at this year’s Championships has increased by a whopping 11.2% from the previous edition in 2022 and there has been a 17.1% increase from the last pre-pandemic edition in 2019.
There has been a significant increase in the overall pot as well in the prize money for every individual category compared to the previous edition. For 2022, Wimbledon’s total prize pot was £40 million, which implies an increase of more than 4 million this time around. Across all the categories, the total amount paid out to players last year was £40,350,000. It was a 15% increase compared to 2021 while there has been an increase by 11.2% this time around.
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