When Rod Laver clinched the first Wimbledon title of the Open era in 1968, his financial reward was £2,000. This year the men's singles winner will walk away with £850,000.

It took Laver 39 singles title wins to scrape together career earnings which just about topped £1 million, but there are no such worries for the stars at the top of the men's game today.

The increasingly lucrative ATP Tour 1000 tournaments and recession-busting Grand Slam prize money mean it is possible for a player never to advance to a major final yet bank on a healthy seven-figure salary.

As of the beginning of May this year, Roger Federer had won in excess of £30 million in career prize money. Even the world number 100 at the same time, Juan Carlos Ferrero, had earned more than £100,000 in 2009 alone.

For the new structure in 2009 the ATP announced a US $6 million bonus pool, which would be available to players who fulfilled their commitments, namely to play in the eight mandatory tournaments.

Prize money was only set to increase, with the ATP exploring every avenue with a view to exploiting the elite sport's burgeoning popularity, based around a new multi-million dollar advertising campaign.

It is all quite a way from the days when Laver could pull off the extraordinary feat of winning all four Grand Slam tournaments in a single year, yet earn a sum which is a tiny fraction of that which is pocketed by the stars of today.