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Is 2024 the last year of tennis as we have known it for some time? To avert the threat of a takeover by Saudi Arabia, plans are on the table for a “Premier Tour,” a combination of the four Grand Slam tournaments and a dozen other top tournaments. Will they all pull together?
Australian Open, Roland Garros, Wimbledon and US Open. Everyone knows the four anchor points in the tennis calendar.
It’s about the only support. Apart from the Grand Slams, there is a lot of chaos. WTA 250, ATP 500, Masters 1,000, ITF tournaments… Tennis fans haven’t been able to see the forest for the trees for some time now.
How could it be any different? No fewer than seven organizers are involved in the game: the ATP for men, the WTA for women, the four organizers of the Grand Slams and the International Tennis Federation (ITF).
The result: a busy calendar that requires players to compete on five different continents from January to November.
Also in 2024, 71 ATP and 58 WTA tournaments will be spread over 11 months. And that doesn’t even include the Olympics.
The overcrowded calendar has long been a thorn in the side of many players, but previous attempts at reform have always failed because all organizers have different interests.
This became painfully clear during the Corona period. When the French tennis organization pushed Roland Garros back without consultation, the other organizers were faced with a fait accompli.
Saudi hijackers on the coast
Reluctant players and a divided landscape. It is fertile ground for the Saudi hijackers on the coast.
Saudi Arabia wanted to gain a foothold in tennis. In 2019, the kingdom launched a demonstration tournament, the Diriyah Cup, but no ATP or WTA tournament has yet taken place.
This year Jeddah celebrated five years of hosting the Next Gen ATP Finals, the championship for the best players under 21, but for the Saudi sheikhs it’s just a cakewalk.
And they have already proven that the Saudis will not wait patiently for their turn in 2022 by turning the golf world on its head. With a lot of money, the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF) attracted many top players to the alternative LIV Golf Tour.
Could tennis be the next victim of Saudi wastefulness?
Related:
Not if Andrea Gaudenzi has his way.
To avoid a LIV scenario, the chairman of the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) wants to appease Saudi Arabia with a top tournament. More specifically, a Masters 1,000 event, the prestigious tournaments that sit just behind the Grand Slams.
According to the British newspaper The Times, a plan is now on the table to land on Saudi soil from January 2025 – a week before the Australian Open.
It would completely disrupt the preparation for the first Grand Slam tournament of the year.
Instead of the traditional preparatory tournaments in Adelaide, Brisbane and Hobart, the top players would compete against each other 12,000 kilometers away on the Arabian Peninsula.
Premier Tour in response
The fact that the Australian tennis season is being treated as collateral damage in the Saudi tennis deal did not sit well with Tennis Australia boss Craig Tiley.
At Wimbledon, the Australian Open organizer decided to enlist the support of the other Grand Slam tournaments for an alternative plan to eliminate the Saudi threat.
The plan: the Tennis Premier Tour. Using the Formula 1 calendar as a source of inspiration, Tiley wants to combine the four Grand Slam tournaments and a dozen other top tournaments into one competition for around the top 100 in the world.
The details still need to be worked out, but according to The Athletic these include the prestigious tournaments of Indian Wells, Miami, Madrid, Rome, Cincinnati…
The proposal has several advantages: the top players will have to play fewer tournaments and the tennis season will be easier for fans to follow.
And what about the tournaments that fall by the wayside? These would be used by players outside the top 100 to earn points and secure their place on the Premier Tour.
There are 14 major events that make it easy for fans to follow the sport of tennis.
Taylor Fritz, world number 10
The Professional Tennis Players Association (PTPA), the tennis union that Novak Djokovic founded in 2020, is open to the proposal.
World number 10 Taylor Fritz is also a big supporter. “That’s a very good idea,” said the American at the start of the season.
“They have 14 major events that make it easy for fans to follow the tennis action. And on top of that, we no longer have a crazy schedule.”
But initiator Craig Tiley emphasizes that there is still “a lot of work” to be done. Therefore, it is necessary to bring many people on the same page.
“There is a great opportunity for tennis to deliver a top product in a more coordinated manner,” he concludes hopefully.
It already seems clear that tennis will look different in 2025. The only question that remains is: which path will be taken?
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