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The
Association of Tennis Professionals or
ATP was formed in
1972 to
protect the interests of male professional
tennis players. Since 1990, the association has
organized the principal worldwide tennis tour for men, the
ATP Tour, which was renamed in January 2009 and is
now known as the
ATP World Tour. It is an
evolution of the tour competitions previously known as World
Championship Tennis.
The ATP's Executive Offices are in London, England
. ATP Americas is based in Ponte Vedra
Beach, Florida
, USA; ATP Europe is headquartered in Monaco
; and ATP
International, which covers Africa, Asia and Australasia, is based
in Sydney,
Australia
.
The counterpart organization in the women's professional game is
the
Women's Tennis
Association.
History
Started in 1972 by several players, it was first managed by
Jack Kramer and
Cliff Drysdale. The organization was integral
in creating professional players' rankings which started the
following year and continues to this day. From 1974 to 1989, the
men's circuit was administered by a sub-committee called the
Men's Tennis Council. It was made up of
representatives of the
International Tennis
Federation (ITF), the ATP, and tournament directors from around
the world.
The ATP requested and got the Men's International Pro Tennis
Council (MIPTC) to introduce a drug testing rule, making tennis the
first professional sport to institute a workable and well-designed
drug-testing program.
But the tour was still run by the tournament directors. The lack of
player representation culminated in a player mutiny in 1988
changing the entire structure of the tour. CEO
Hamilton Jordan is credited with the now
infamous "Parking Lot Press Conference" resulting in their own ATP
Tour. This re-organization also ended a lawsuit with Volvo and
Donald Dell.
By 1991, the men had their first television package to broadcast 19
tournaments to the world. Coming on-line with their first website
in 1995, was quickly followed by a multi-year agreement with
Mercedes-Benz.
Lawsuits in 2008, around virtually the same issues, resulted in a
restructured tour.
ATP Tour
The ATP Tour comprises
Grand
Slam,
ATP World Tour
Masters 1000,
ATP World
Tour 500 series,
ATP World
Tour 250 series,
ATP
Challenger Series, and
Futures
tournaments.
The ATP tour also oversees the World Team Cup, played in Düsseldorf
in May, and the ATP
Champions Tour for seniors.
Players and doubles teams with most ranking points (collected
during the calendar year) play in the season-ending
Tennis Masters Cup, which is run jointly
with
ITF. The
week-long introductory level Futures tournaments are
ITF events and they count
towards
ATP Entry Ranking. The
four-week ITF
Satellite
tournaments were discontinued in 2007.
Grand Slam tournaments are overseen by
the ITF and they count towards the players' ATP rankings. The
details of the professional tennis tour are:
| Event category |
Number |
Total prize money (USD) |
Winner's ranking points |
Governing body |
| Grand Slams |
4 |
See individual articles |
2,000 |
ITF |
| ATP World Tour Finals |
1 |
4,450,000 |
1100-1500 |
ATP & ITF |
| ATP World Tour Masters 1000 |
9 |
2,450,000 to 3,450,000 |
1000 |
ATP |
| ATP 500 |
11 |
755,000 to 1,426,250 |
500 |
ATP |
| ATP 250 |
40 |
416,000 to 1,000,000 |
250 |
ATP |
| ATP World Team Cup |
1 |
1,750,000 |
- |
ATP |
| ATP Challenger Series |
178 |
35,000 to 150,000 |
75 to 125 |
ATP |
| Futures |
534 |
10,000 and 15,000 |
17 to 33 |
ITF |
2009 changes
ATP World Tour tournaments in 2009 are classified as ATP World Tour
Masters 1000, ATP World Tour 500, and ATP World Tour 250. Broadly
speaking the Masters Series tournaments became the new Masters 1000
level and the international series (gold) events became 500 level
and 250 level events.
The
Masters 1000 includes tournaments at Indian
Wells
, Miami
, Monte
Carlo
, Rome
, Madrid, Toronto/Montreal, Cincinnati, Shanghai and Paris. The end-of-year event, the
Tour Finals, moved to London.
Hamburg
has been
displaced by the new clay court event at Madrid, which is a new
combined men's and women's tournament. From 2011, Rome and
Cincinnati will also be combined tournaments. Severe sanctions will
be placed on top players skipping the Masters 1000 series events,
unless medical proof is presented.
Plans to eliminate Monte
Carlo and Hamburg as Masters
Series events led to controversy and protests from players as well
as organizers. Hamburg and Monte Carlo filed lawsuits
against the ATP, and as a concession it was decided that Monte
Carlo remains a Masters 1000 level event, with more prize money and
1000 ranking points, but it would no longer be a compulsory
tournament for top-ranked players. Monte Carlo later dropped its
suit. Hamburg was "reserved" to become a 500 level event in the
summer. Hamburg did not accept this concession, but later lost its
suit..
The
500 level includes tournaments at Rotterdam, Dubai
, Acapulco
, Memphis,
Barcelona, Hamburg, Washington
, Beijing,
Tokyo, Basel and Valencia.
The ATP & ITF have declared that
2009 Davis Cup World Group and
World Group Playoffs award a total of up to 500 points. Players
accumulate points over the 4 rounds and the playoffs and these are
counted as one of a player's four best results from the
500 level events. An additional 125 points are
given to a player who wins all 8 live rubbers and wins the Davis
Cup.
Otherwise, the domain name of their website was changed to
"www.atpworldtour.com".
Rankings
ATP publishes weekly rankings of professional players,
ATP
Entry Ranking, a 52-week rolling ranking and until 2009,
the
ATP Race, a
year to date ranking.The Entry Ranking is used
for determining qualification for entry and seeding in all
tournaments for both singles and doubles. Within the Entry Ranking
period consisting of the past 52 weeks, points are accumulated,
with the exception of those for the Tennis Masters Cup, whose
points are dropped following the last ATP event of the year. The
player with the most points by season's end is the
World
Number 1 of the year.At the start of the 2009 season, all
accumulated ranking points have been doubled to bring them in line
with the new tournament ranking system.
ATP Race was an annual race from season start to season end but was
discontinued beginning in 2009. Every player would start collecting
points from the beginning of the season. At the end of the season,
the ATP Race determined which players and teams (first eight for
singles and first four for doubles) can compete in the Tennis
Masters Cup, now called the World Tour Finals.
Current Rankings
Staff
Adam Helfant is the current Executive
Chairman and President of ATP with Mark Young as the
CEO of Americas.
Andy Anson is
the CEO of Europe division while
Brad
Drewett heads as CEO of the International division.
The
ATP Board includes Adam Helfant along with
tournament representatives,
Željko Franulović,
Charlie Pasarell and
Graham Pearce. It also includes three player
representatives with two-year terms,
Ivan Ljubičić as the European
representative (until the end of 2009 term),
David Edges as the International representative
and
Justin Gimelstob as the
Americas representative. The player representatives are elected by
the ATP Player Council.
The 10-member
ATP Player Council delivers advisory
decisions to the Board of Directors, which has the power to accept
or reject the Council's suggestions. The Council consists of four
players who are ranked within top 50 in singles (
Roger Federer,
Rafael
Nadal,
Novak Djokovic and
Fernando Gonzalez), two players
who are ranked between 51 and 100 in singles (
Peter Luczak and
Michael Berrer), two top 100 players in
doubles (
Yves Allegro and
Eric Butorac) and two
at-large members (
David Martin and
Ashley Fisher).
See also
References
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