Reilly Opelka continues his war of words with tennis fans after being criticized for his dig at ATP over player compensation

Reilly Opelka's criticism of the ATP for suppressing compensation to players has kicked off a war of words between him and tennis fans who felt Opelka's comments were out of line.

The towering American player started the debate a couple of days ago by showing his displeasure at the fact that his fellow Americans Taylor Fritz and Frances Tiafoe were playing for lesser prize money in the Japan Open final last week as compared to the finalists of the same tournament back in 2018.

Many fans were not in agreement with Opelka. They highlighted that while the winner's prize money was lesser in the 2022 edition, the overall prize money pool had indeed gone up by a decent margin as opposed to the 2018 edition.

The back-and-forth between Reilly Opelka and fans is still ongoing and the American player hit back at some of the criticism he received. He sarcastically replied to a fan who urged him to "do his research" before commenting.

Earlier, Opelka replied to another comment and said that he brought up the issue because he felt it needed to be spoken about. He went on to add that he did not join social media to please people and earn more fans.

"I'm just keeping it real, someones gotta do it otherwise players will continue to be taken advantage of. I didnt join twitter to make fans. If I did I would just tweet about wearing masks and being vaxxed and have all the tennis twitter love in the world," Opelka wrote.

"Totality of prize money at every level is fundamentally suppressed" - Reilly Opelka

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In his series of tweets earlier this week, Reilly Opelka suggested that he never had a problem with the distribution of prize money, but feels that the overall prize money pool at most tournaments is significantly suppressed. He highlighted that revenues have gone up considerably over the years owing to sponsorship, broadcast, and the likes, but players are not being compensated enough in proportion to the increased revenues.

"My argument has never been about the distribution of prize money. Its about the totality of prize money at every level and how it is fundamentally suppressed insuring the sports suits benefit disproportionally from our talent," Reilly Opelka tweeted.

"The systematic suppression of player compensation is real. U can say whatever you want about the past 4 year period but sponsorship, data, broadcast, gambling revenues have all gone up, plus sky rocketing sanction values. And it is beyond disproportionate to player compensation," he expressed in another post.

Reilly Opelka last played on tour at the Citi Open back in early August. He missed the rest of the American hardcourt swing, including the US Open, due to an injury. He won the Dallas Open and Houston Open titles earlier this season.