Tennis’ top women say the sport is broken. This is why

For the better part of a decade, Tatjana Maria, the veteran German player, has crammed her husband/coach and children into cramped hotel rooms, or used her own money to pay for larger rooms as she traveled the world with her family. she could be a full-time mother and professional tennis player.

In 2018, CoCo Vandeweghe played most of the season with a broken foot to avoid fines for missing mandatory tournaments. The injury led to a syndrome that left her unable to walk and nearly ended her career.

With no guaranteed salary, Danielle Collins spent money she didn’t really have and didn’t know she would recoup in 2019 to cover the costs of a full-time coach, physiotherapist and hitting partner to try to break into the prison. upper level of a sport that has existed for fifty years largely on an eat-what-you-kill model.

Now most of the world’s top tennis players have had it with all that, with the feeling that they are being treated like the hired help of an organization, the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA), rather than the star attractions that fans buy. tickets and tune in to television to see.

Simmer for a long time tTensions between top players and leaders of their pro tour boiled over in Cancun, Mexico, during the WTA Tour Finals. The turning point was a stadium in court at what is supposedly their sport’s signature event that they consider unpredictable and unsafe. It was also not ready for practice until the day before the start of the event.

This fight, players say, is about the big ideas — respect, equality, being heard and being heard — that usually underlie athlete revolts. For three and a half weeks, WTA CEO Steve Simon has rejected a request from top players for a written response to a long list of requested improvements in everything from compensation and the tennis calendar to tournament operations and maternity coverage.

“These questions have been bubbling for years and now we see the consequences of not answering them,” said Bethanie Mattek-Sands, the doubles specialist and former member of the WTA Players’ Council who now heads the nascent players’ organization. , the Association of Professional Tennis Players (PTPA). “We’re putting band-aids on things instead of creating real change.”

Players have long resisted major collective action, but no more. The recent list of ‘requests’ (not demands for now) that 21 leading players, including a majority of those ranked in the top 20, submitted in early October covers four areas: the schedule, tournament qualifying rules and standards, compensation, and representation.

Some are easy gifts, while others, especially when it comes to money, are less easy because there is a finite amount of it that needs to grow. Media rights fees for women’s tennis are approximately one-seventh of those for men’s tennis. That means the WTA contributes far less financial support to each tournament, resulting in lower prize money, which accounts for the bulk of the revenue for all but the top players, who enjoy extensive endorsement portfolios. At this year’s Italian Open, the men competed for $8.5 million, while the women competed for $3.9 million. At the ASB Classic in Auckland in January, the men’s champion, Richard Gasquet, received almost $98,000. The women’s champion, Coco Gauff, received just over $34,000.

Misogyny, a weaker market, less exposure and interest in women’s sports, as well as fundamental incompetence, are all responsible for this to varying degrees, depending on who you speak to.

On the schedule, players are largely looking for more flexibility. They want more time between the largest and medium-sized events. They want fewer mandatory events, which could lead to unhealthy pressure on injured players to participate. They want more opportunities to play at small events and exhibitions, which require participation fees.

In terms of qualifying rules and tournament standards, players want the tournament registration deadline reduced to three weeks instead of four, more options to withdraw from a tournament without penalty, and lower fines for skipping mandatory events. They want an end to starting matches late at night or without sufficient recovery time and new rules for early round byes and wildcard entries. They want child care at all major and mid-sized tournaments, larger hotel rooms for players traveling with families, and a voice in evaluating a tournament’s operational performance.

Elena Rybakina cheers on fans in Cancun (Clive Brunskill/Getty Images)

They are also aiming to shift from a strict pay-for-play format to some form of guaranteed compensation for the top 250 players: $500,000 for players in the top 100, $200,000 for the next 75 and $100,000 for the rest. The proposed compensation system would include injury protection, offering half the minimum wage if a player misses six months.

In the event of pregnancy and childbirth, a player would receive the protection for two years. They want a bonus pool for top players, a guaranteed percentage of a tournament’s revenue, and the ability to examine the financials of each tournament. They want a member of the PTPA to be present at all meetings of the organization’s Player Council, with full access to all player areas at all tournaments, so that their needs and wishes are no longer neglected.

That neglect became public Monday evening, along with details of two tense meetings between players and tour guides. Finally, the tour’s embattled CEO wrote to the top 20 players late Monday to convey the message that he understood the dissatisfaction with playing conditions in Cancun and was working to address their larger concerns.

The question now is whether Simon and other leaders can both carry out the triage to quell this current uprising and commit to the kind of changes the top players are demanding to ensure the survival of the WTA Tour.

“In my experience, whenever this has happened, it’s always been voting-related, where players haven’t felt like their voice matters, they’ve felt like there’s a balance of power that’s been taken away,” said retired player Pam Shriver. , coach and commentator who served as president of the WTA in the 1990s. “I understand why they are angry.”

The WTA declined to provide a copy of Simon’s letter. On Monday, the tour released a statement saying: “Players have always been equal decision makers to ensure a strong direction for women’s tennis.”

Players disagree. Earlier this year, Spain’s Paula Badosa, who rose to second in the world rankings last year, expressed frustration at the lack of communication between the WTA’s leadership, which consists of full-time staff, tournament directors and player representatives. and the players themselves. Rule changes and financial decisions on fundamental issues such as prize money are rarely explained.

“They don’t inform us,” said Badosa, who sits on the PTPA board. “They say this is what you get and you have to play.”

Vandeweghe, who retired earlier this year and is now an analyst for Tennis Channel, said she was encouraged to see that players feel empowered to speak more freely with their sport’s leaders and demand the kind of transparency that allows them allows them to better understand their interests. company and the role they play in it. Her memories of the intense pain she endured playing – so she would have enough money to support her career and avoid being fined for withdrawing from mandatory tournaments – are raw and real.

She had reached number 9 in the world, but with the snap of a finger, everything including her income disappeared as she tried to manage the financial burden of treatments, rehabilitation and physiotherapy. An uneventful dismissal with temporary disability benefits could have changed everything, she said, and is something worth fighting for.

“This feels like one family fight,” she said of the growing conflict between top players and tour guides. “You have arguments here and there, but now it gets to the heart of the matter.”

Mattek-Sands, a former professional and former member of the WTA Players Council and now leader of the PTPA, said she sat in meetings with the tour’s leaders and thought about what professional tennis would look like if they could start from scratch. again. The more she asked the question, the more she began to understand that her sport required radical shifts.

Maria Sakkari in action in Cancun (Clive Brunskill/Getty Images)

In a letter to Simon last week, Ahmad Nassar, the PTPA’s executive director, said the organization “will explore all alternatives in our continued efforts to do better on behalf of the players who make this game phenomenal.” Nassar was no more specific than that. That wasn’t necessary.

Nassar went on to say that the current system, where the same organization tries to accommodate the often conflicting interests of tournament organizers and players, was doomed.

“There is a broad wave of athlete empowerment in sports,” Nassar wrote. “It would be wise for all of us to embrace it and ride it rather than trying to fend it off in vain.”

(Top photo: Getty Images)