Grand slam! Todd Woodbridge and Lleyton Hewitt’s enormous Tennis Australia salaries

The Australian Open is renowned as the happy slam – particularly for former champions Todd Woodbridge and Lleyton Hewitt.

The pair are drawing massive salaries from Tennis Australia, the organiser of the grand slam event.

Todd Woodbridge is one of the highest paid employees at the Australian OpenCredit: Getty Images

Woodbridge, a 16-time grand slam event winner, earned $US264,000 ($425,000) as Tennis Australia’s “media ambassador”.

It seems a tennis ambassador can earn more than Kevin Rudd, Australia’s actual ambassador to the United States, who earns in the range of $137,833 to $300,974, according to SBS.

Lleyton Hewitt and wife Bec at the Newcombe tennis awards in December. Credit: Eddie Jim

Meanwhile, former US Open and Wimbledon champion Hewitt earned $US350,468 ($564,500) as TA’s Davis Cup captain. Australia lost in the semi-final to eventual winners Italy. We last won in 2003.

Woodbridge’s duties include hosting events and awards nights, TV broadcasts and podcasts for the organisation, as well as numerous coaching clinics.

The salaries are contained in a document known as a 990 form, which is filed with the US with the Internal Revenue Service for the fiscal year ending in September 2023 and contains a level of detail far in excess of the organisation’s Australian annual report.

It shows boss Craig Tiley was by far the best paid sports executive in Australia, earning $US2.35 million ($3.78 million) for the fiscal year ending September 2023. Chief content officer Darren Pearce was paid $US690,798 ($1.1 million) and chief commercial officer Cedric Cornelis brought in $US590,818 ($951,000).

On top of those salaries is “other compensation from the organisation and related organisations”, which varies for each executive.

Happy times also on court, with player prizemoney nudging $100 million, up a cool 11.6 per cent.

The latest Tennis Australia accounts lodged in Australia show executive pay was outpacing the growth in prizemoney, growing by 12.6 per cent – now that’s inflation!

Key management personnel compensation for the year ended September 30, 2023, was $9.5 million, up from $8.43 million the previous year.

A Tennis Australia source said the filings did not reflect reality as the reporting period was abnormal. And reps from Nine*, where Woodbridge works as a presenter and commentator, and W Sports & Media, which reps Hewitt, politely declined to comment.

But we were reminded of comments that Tiley himself made to this masthead two years ago, when we put it to him that the colour-blocked Polo Ralph Lauren shirts worn by ball kids would set shoppers back $179. “Price is driven by demand,” he said.

POSITION VACANT

Matildas players Elise Kellond-Knight (left) and Emily Gielnik at the Australian Open.Credit: Joe Armao

Matildas stars Emily Gielnik and Elise “KK” Kellond-Knight were at the Piper-Heidsieck bar for a pre-match champagne before heading in to see the tennis.

Gielnik said she was a big tennis fan. “I feel like if I put my mind to it when I was younger, maybe I could have been a tennis player,” she said. “I love it. I actually just saw Novak Djokovic’s chiropractor an hour ago, so I’m living vicariously through him.”

Kellond-Knight retired from soccer this year and said that since then she had started playing padel, “so I’m addicted to that”.

Matildas captain Sam Kerr appeared in court in London on Wednesday over the alleged harassment of a police officer, and Gielnik said she felt stressed watching the media scrum outside the court.

“To be honest, I avoided messaging her because I’m sure her inbox would be getting flooded,” Gielnik said. “I was feeling a little bit stressed for her yesterday because it was pretty confronting. It was like something you’d see on the news, like someone’s up for murder.”

Kerr’s partner is pregnant, and Gielnik said she was concerned.

“It’s tough,” she said. “I wanted to give it a few days and I will reach out, but her phone will be blowing up right now. I just hope that she is doing OK because that can’t be easy.”

Gielnik said the Matildas were going well but were in a transition phase looking for a new coach.

While Olympique Lyonnais boss Joe Montemurro has been touted as a potential coach for the team, Kellond-Knight said she thought this was unlikely.

“They missed the boat,” she said. “He coaches at Lyonnais, and he’s got Champions League, so it would take a lot for him to give it up.”

Gielnik said Montemurro would be “the ultimate candidate”.

“We don’t know if he’s actually applied or if they’ve reached out, but there would be a lot of the Matildas gunning for him to get the job,” she said. “I think change would be good.”

PADDLING TO WORK

It has been quite the hot streak for gold medal-winning Olympian Jess Fox, OAM.

Fox and sister Noemie Fox have been prominent all week at the Australian Open.

Noemie, an ambassador for champagne sponsor Piper-Heidsieck, has also been doing time in the Ralph Lauren marquee, while Jess has been working as a roving reporter for Nine’s Wide World of Sports, even dressing up as a ball girl at one point.

Last year, the sisters shared the Sport Australia Hall of Fame Don Award in December for their gold medal successes at the Paris Olympics in July, where Jess won a gold medal in the women’s K1 kayak slalom and defended her Olympic title in the women’s C1 canoe slalom. Noemie won gold for the women’s slalom kayak cross.

“Nine have been keeping me busy on broadcast here at the AO and I’m loving every minute,” Jess Fox told Open Season.

But she had to make it work around her day job. “I’ve been doing my training on the Yarra every morning.

“This morning I watched the crowds roll in Melbourne Park from the water, I surfed a wave from a Melbourne water taxi and had some school kids in their rowing boats yelling out to say hello to me, which has been funny and quite unique.”

The Fox sisters are leaving the Open before the women’s and men’s finals for something closer to their hearts. They are competing in the Oceania Championships in Penrith next week.

*Nine owns this masthead.

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