MUMBAI: The ATP and WTA tours have served up a bold proposal to tennis's four Grand Slams that would unite the sport's fractured ecosystem under one corporate umbrella, only to be met with a terse rejection that leaves the future of the sport in a state of limbo.
In a 23-page pitch presented last week, ATP chairman Andrea Gaudenzi and WTA chief Steve Simon outlined a sweeping reform package to address tennis's fragmented structure and financial inequities. The timing couldn't be more fraught, coming just as the Professional Tennis Players Association (PTPA) co-founded by Novak Djokovic unleashed a legal volley against the sport's governing bodies, accusing them of "anti-competitive practices and a blatant disregard for player welfare".
The tours' proposal envisions creating a new entity called Tennis Ventures that would combine the commercial interests of the ATP, WTA and the four Grand Slams. While the majors would maintain control of their domestic media rights, international rights would be packaged together to maximize bargaining power.
"It all starts with top players at premium events—driving rivalries and elevating the sport's biggest stages," the proposal states, advocating for a streamlined calendar featuring four Grand Slams, 10 ATP Masters 1000 events and 10 WTA 1000 events.
But the Grand Slams, who contribute over 50 per cent of tennis's estimated $2.2 billion annual revenue, have returned a withering response. "Whilst we appreciate the time and effort you have put in to articulating your position, it fails to adequately address the essential issues we have repeatedly raised," they wrote in an eight-paragraph letter.
The majors prefer a more radical pruning of the tennis calendar, cutting from 118 tournaments to around 30 elite events with a substantially longer off-season. Their priorities include creating what they call a "premium product" that would be easier for fans to follow—and conveniently give even more prominence to their already dominant events.
A particularly sticky point is governance. The proposed board structure would give the four Grand Slams just three representatives, a notion that reportedly landed with all the grace of a double fault. One insider familiar with the majors' thinking described the tours' proposal as "essentially no different to what we have already".
At the heart of the dispute lies the age-old question of money. Currently, player prize money at Grand Slams represents just 15 to 20 per cent of tournament revenue—a stark contrast to major American sports leagues, where players receive closer to 50 per cent.
Gaudenzi and Simon aim to address this disparity through "a profit-sharing model where players and tournaments share in new value created," including bringing the cash-rich Grand Slams into the bonus pool system that already exists at lower-tier events.
"This is ultimately about creating a sustainable ecosystem," the tours' document states. "Where players have transparency over the financials. Where your wins are their wins."
But with the PTPA now lobbing legal challenges on three continents and the Grand Slams holding firm, tennis seems destined to remain a house divided against itself. As the majors curtly concluded in their rejection letter: "Until you feel able to commit to a vision and a plan with respect to these core issues it is difficult to see how our discussions can continue".
The ball, it seems, is once again in nobody's court.
