ATP and WTA describe as “unfortunate and erroneous” the measures of the PTPA

The ATP and the WTA have announced that they will “vigorously” defend their position against the legal actions undertaken by the Association of Professional Tenists (PTPA), founded by the Serbian Novak Djokovic and the Canadian Vasek Pospisil, for abusive practices, and have described as “unfortunate and wrong” the action of the PTPA.

“We flatly reject the premise of the claims of the PTPA, we believe that the case is totally founded as a foundation and will strongly defend our position. ATP maintains its commitment to work in the best interest of the game: towards continuous growth, economic stability and the best possible future for our players, tournaments and fans,” said the ATP in a statement.

This same Tuesday, the Association of Professional Tennis (PTPA), founded by Djokovic and PostpiSil in 2020, announced legal actions against ATP, the WTA, the International Federation of Tennis (ITF) and the International Agency for the Integrity of Tennis (ITIA) for “abusive practices”, with the aim of “saving” tennis through “a real reform and a system The players “.

The ATP defended that, since the creation of ATP Tour in 1990, they have always guaranteed that tennis players and tournaments “have the same voice when defining the course of sport at the highest level.” “The introduction of a metallic awards formula has contributed to a significant increase in players compensation, up to 70 million dollars in the last five years. The introduction of independent annual audits has provided the players with total transparency on the finances of the ATP tournaments,” he said.

In addition, he stressed that the contributions to the pension fund of the players “have shot themselves”, and pointed out that each key decision “is taken with the participation of the players.” “The players, as independent contractors, have kept broad control over their schedules, allowing them to compete, train and monetize their careers as they seem better,” he said.

“While ATP has remained focused on implementing reforms that benefit players at multiple levels, the PTPA has systematically opted for division and distraction through misinformation instead of progress. Five years after its creation in 2020, the PTPA has struggled to establish a significant role in tennis, so it does not surprise its decision to take legal actions at this time,” he said.

Meanwhile, the WTA was also overwhelmed in its response. “The action of the PTPA is unfortunate and wrong, and we will defend our position vigorously in due time,” he said. “The WTA players, as members on equal terms with tournaments, have an essential and influential voice in the governance of the WTA. Each decision made at the level of the WTA board of directors includes the opinion of the players through their elected representatives in the Board, and the athletes receive important economic rewards and other benefits for their participation in the WTA,” he said.

Thus, he stressed that this governance model has allowed “to achieve considerable progress for the benefit” of the tennis players. “In recent years we have committed to an increase of 400 million dollars in the compensation of the players, we have established a path to salary equality in our main WTA events, we have achieved new investments to boost the long -term growth of sport and we have launched the first integral performance benefits for independent and autonomous athletes in the history of female sports,” he said.

“The WTA is fully committed to the continuous development of the structure and operations of female professional tennis, listening carefully, as always, the opinions of our players. Challenge this legal case will deviate time, attention and resources of our main mission, to the detriment of our players and sport as a whole,” he concluded.