After initial talks involving Murray, Federer, Nadal and Roddick, players will discuss the situation at next month’s Shanghai Masters
Andy Murray’s talk of a potential strike comes with the authority of the former world No1s Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer and Andy Roddick. The four held a meeting to discuss the state of the game after a long and dispiriting US Open tournament this month, and a jaded view of the ATP Tour’s schedule emerged.
Murray and his peers are not mere shop stewards, but wealth creators for the sport. Theirs are the names that pull in the spectators and broadcasters’ dollars, and the threat to withdraw their labour would strike fear into promoters.
It is, moreover, understandable. A condition of entry to the ATP Tour is that all players must participate in the four grand slam tournaments, eight Masters events, four of the 11 ATP500 tour and the World Tennis finals at the O2 in December.
Those 17 commitments mean about 20 weeks a year of competition playing time, with many more weeks of travelling, preparation and training. Nadal, for instance, has played 72 matches in the eight months of this season alone, equating to 1,784 games in competitions.
But even for all that exertion – the four have won 150 career titles and generated $145m total prize money between them – sponsorship income brings in multiples of that sum.
“We’ll sit down, talk about it with the Association of Tennis Professionals and International Tennis Federation, see if they will come to a compromise and if not, we’ll go from there,” Murray told the BBC, ahead of a meeting with tour players at the Masters tournament in Shanghai next month.
When asked if that might include strike action, the world No4 responded: “Yes, I think so. It’s a possibility. I know from speaking to some players they’re not afraid of doing that. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that but I’m sure the players will consider it.
“If we come up with a list of things we want changed – and everyone is in agreement, but they don’t happen – then we need to have some say in what goes on in our sport At the moment, we don’t.”
Tennis players do, however, have a bigger say in what goes on than in any other major sport than golf. They hold a 50% share of the ATP, with the other 50% held by the promoters. Nadal and Federer are, respectively, the vice-president and president of the player council, the 12-man board that feeds their views to the ATP’s board. “The players should and do have a major say in how the game is run, which is one of the key reasons the ATP Tour was formed as an equal partnership between players and tournaments,” said the ruling body in a statement.
“The calendar has long been a topic of conversation and just last year we announced that we would be lengthening our off-season by two weeks beginning in 2012, meaning players will have seven weeks in between ATP World Tour seasons.”
The difficulty for the ATP is that it must balance the concerns of the big-name players with the financial requirements of their counterparts across the net. At the Shanghai Masters the winner will earn US$620,000. First-round losers will pick up only US$11,500 each.
The last major alteration to the schedule came in 2009 when five-set finals were consigned to history, entry lists to the Masters events were reduced and byes were extended to the top-eight seeds. It meant a new cycle of broadcast contracts, typically of three years’ duration, began at that point, reducing the flexibility for change to the tournament schedule.
The next cycle begins in 2012 but there is an argument that several of the 2009 changes have reduced the return the spectators receive from their sport.
Tennis faces a dilemma similar to many sports. There are a small number of sporting and financial powers whose participation drives the revenues of the entire game. But, as one insider said: “Each player will have different priorities. The world No80 is not likely to want to cut back on the number of tournaments. They want to play as much as they can.”
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