An alternative Super League to the ATP circuit with the support of Djokovic?

2023-12-04 13:58:23

In the only weeks of the year in which tennis stops, a report from “Sports Illustrated” has shaken the men’s professional circuit. The American publication assures that negotiations have already been launched for the four Grand Slams (Australian Open, Roland Garros, Wimbledon and US Open) to come together and organize a circuit outside the ATP in which the nine would also be included. Masters 1,000 (Indian Wells, Miami, Monte Carlo, Madrid, Rome, Canada, Cincinnati, Shanghai and Paris) plus a newly created one that would be held in Saudi Arabia at the beginning of January, before the Australian Open. An event that all the greats would be at before traveling to Melbourne.

The germ of this plan has a double track. On the one hand there is the discontent of the players with the way in which the ATP manages the circuit. The most important rackets in the world, led by Novak Djokovic, want more prizes, for them to be more distributed and the cake not to be distributed only between 100-150 players and also for the calendar to not be so demanding. To that we must add the ball controversy that has erupted this season. The number of muscle injuries due to the constant changing of balls in different tournaments has caused tennis players to become fed up. They don’t want them to be too heavy and cause injuries, but they also don’t want them to be too light so that the game isn’t a succession of cannon shots. And if to all that is added the injection of many millions of dollars from Saudi Arabia, the plan is viable.

The idea would be to organize an alternative circuit with a calendar in which exclusively the four “Majors” and ten Masters 1,000 were included. The Grand Slams are organized by the Federation of each country in which they are played, so they do not depend on the ATP, but on the International Tennis Federation. The ATP would be relegated to a second-level circuit and would be left with little more than the crumbs of the calendar: the ATP 500, the 250 and the Nitto ATP Finals.

Saudi Arabia’s push for the entire project is decisive. The Middle Eastern country began exploring the possibility of bidding for the licenses for the Madrid and Miami tournaments, which are in the hands of IMG, the event organization and representation company, which among others has Carlos Alcaraz in its portfolio. The operation is complicated both in economic and calendar terms, so the alternative is to create a new tournament. Saudi Arabia has so far only one event, the Next Gen Finals, a minor tournament in which the eight best tennis players under 21 years of age compete and which does not distribute points for the ATP ranking. The Saudi authorities, as confirmed in the recent edition, consider that this tournament is not enough to spread a better image of the country and that is why they want more. The commitment to the new calendar is accompanied by the opening of borders to the women’s circuit. The country is the main candidate to host the WTA Finals in 2024 after the failure of previous venues.