Players' group co-founded by Canadian Vasek Pospisil files antitrust suit against tennis organizers

The Associated Press

· Posted: Mar 18, 2025 2:02 PM EDT | Last Updated: 7 minutes ago

Calling the groups successful complaint of nonrecreational tennis "a cartel," the players' relation co-founded by Canada's Vasek Pospisil and Serbia's Novak Djokovic filed an antitrust suit against the women's and men's tours, the International Tennis Federation and the sport's integrity bureau connected Tuesday successful national tribunal successful New York.

The suit by the Professional Tennis Players' Association says the organizations that tally the athletics clasp "complete power implicit the players' wage and moving conditions" and their setup constitutes "textbook violations of authorities and national law" that "immunize nonrecreational tennis from mean marketplace forces and contradict nonrecreational tennis players and different manufacture participants their close to just competition."

The suit seeks a assemblage proceedings and wants players to summation entree to much earnings, arguing that the governing bodies that oversee the 4 Grand Slam tournaments — Wimbledon, the U.S. Open, the French Open and the Australian Open — and different nonrecreational events "cap the prize wealth tournaments grant and bounds players' quality to gain wealth disconnected the court."

The WTA Tour and ATP Tour issued abstracted statements Tuesday saying they would "vigorously" support themselves.

The WTA said it has "committed to a $400 cardinal (all figures US) summation successful subordinate compensation" successful caller years and labeled the PTPA enactment a "baseless ineligible case" that is "regrettable and misguided." The ATP touted a "major summation successful subordinate compensation" that created a leap of "$70 cardinal successful the past 5 years," and called the PTPA's lawsuit "entirely without merit."

"The PTPA has consistently chosen part and distraction done misinformation implicit progress," the ATP's connection said. "Five years connected from its inception successful 2020, the PTPA has struggled to found a meaningful relation successful tennis, making its determination to prosecute ineligible enactment astatine this juncture unsurprising."

The ITF and the International Tennis Integrity Agency — which investigates and adjudicates doping and corruption cases — declined to comment.

The PTPA was founded by 24-time Grand Slam champion Djokovic and Vasek Pospisil successful August 2020, aiming to connection practice for players who are autarkic contractors successful a mostly idiosyncratic sport. One of the goals made wide on the mode was to go a benignant of full-fledged national that negotiates corporate bargaining agreements similar those that beryllium successful squad sports.

"For the past fewer years, the PTPA, an enactment I've worked connected tirelessly since its inception, has made countless efforts to collaborate with the tours successful hopes of achieving affirmative alteration for players. Despite these efforts and attempts to prosecute successful constructive dialogue, we were met with absorption and a deficiency of meaningful action. It is due to the fact that of this ongoing disregard for players that we were near with nary alternate but to instrumentality enactment of our own," Pospisil posted connected societal media. "For excessively long, players person been forced to judge a breached strategy that ignores our well-being, undervalues our contributions, and leaves america without existent representation."

Djokovic is not 1 of the players listed arsenic a plaintiff.

"His enactment for this is already explicit. It's redundant since PTPA (is) named arsenic plaintiff, and helium is connected (the enforcement committee)," PTPA spokesperson David Cooper wrote successful an email. "He wanted to let others to measurement up since this is not conscionable Novak's (organization)."

The PTPA said it met with much than 250 players — women and men, and a bulk of the apical 20 successful the WTA and ATP rankings — earlier going to court.

"Tennis is broken," PTPA enforcement manager Ahmad Nassar said successful a quality release. "Behind the glamorous veneer that the defendants promote, players are trapped successful an unfair strategy that exploits their talent, suppresses their earnings, and jeopardizes their wellness and safety. We person exhausted each options for betterment done dialogue, and the governing bodies person near america nary prime but to question accountability done the courts. Fixing these systemic failures isn't astir disrupting tennis — it's astir redeeming it for the generations of players and fans to come."