Article was first posted on ubitennis.com – translated by Alice Nagni, Michele Brusadelli and Kingsley Kaye
There’s no doubt that Andrea Gaudenzi’s tenure as ATP-president has been one of the most tumultuous in tennis history so far: it began with the five-month interruption due to the pandemic, then he had to deal with the growing protests of the players on the prize money division and the creation (without too many consequences so far) of the PTPA. In January 2022 the Djokovic affair in Australia, then the “China problem” (the autumn tour is still in troubled waters despite being formally confirmed) and now the implications of the war in Ukraine with Wimbledon’s recent decision to ban Russians and Belarusians from the Championships.
Even the most hyperactive leader may feel overloaded. However, Gaudenzi’s main focus during this period has laid on the development and the implementation of his strategic plan to lay the foundations for building an increasingly sustainable tour in which players can finally get their fair share of the earnings. Masters 1000 profits can represent the backbone of the future sport sustainability.
The most significant change in Gaudenzi’s strategic plan is the extension of all Masters 1000 tournaments to 11-12 day joint tournaments with 96-player draws. The tournaments structured in this way, with their greater revenues, will be able to include a series of smaller events, from the ATP 500 to the ATP 250 and to the Challenger Series, so that they will be offered logistical support and allowing a reduction in expenses through economies of scope and scale.
Last October, during an interview to the Sports Business Journal, Gaudenzi confirmed that the strategic plan was already 70% approved and that only the final pieces were missing to move on to the operational phase of the project.
During the last tournaments in Indian Wells and Miami, the ordinary meetings of the ATP executive were held as usual and, according to what Ubitennis has found out, they definitively approved the passage of most Masters 1000 to longer events with a 96-player draw. In particular, the Mutua Madrid Open and the Italian Open should start with the new format in the 2023 season, while the Canadian Open/Western&Southern Open in Cincinnati should switch to the extended draw only from 2024.
It is not clear, at the moment, how the calendar will be reorganised to allow for the expansion of these Masters 1000 tournaments, which in the case of the “Internazionali BNL” of Italy will also need to solve some logistical problems in order to provide support to the additional players (and most likely men and women) who will be arriving in Rome owing to the new extended draw.
Traditionally the back-to-back of the Indian Wells BNP Paribas Open and the Miami Open monopolises the entire month of March, with four weeks entirely dedicated to just two events. It has not yet been confirmed how the Madrid and Rome tournaments will be held, considering the new configuration: in the past years there was discussion, also at the ATP Board level, about the possibility of joining the two events in a “ying-yang” mode by compacting them into three weeks only and dividing the 23 days available (including the weekend before the start) between two tournaments of 11-12 days each. This would have involved playing the finals of the Madrid tournament on Wednesday, an option firmly opposed by the former owner of the Madrid event, the volcanic Romanian Ion Tiriac. Now that Tiriac has been replaced by IMG, which has acquired the Mutua Madrid Open, in addition to the Miami Open that they have already owned for many years, the situation may be different, but no statement on such matter, neither official nor unofficial, has been released.
Another option could be to replicate the Indian Wells / Miami model, scheduling in the second week of the two ATP Masters 1000 a “satellite” tournament at ATP 250 level, which players who have been eliminated from the main draw of the Masters 1000 could participate in. In this way it would be easier to bring these ATP 250 events under the protective wing of the corresponding Masters 1000, and the calendar would not be disrupted, allowing the smaller tournaments that are currently scheduled to find an attractive placement.
The official announcement is expected quite soon: Gaudenzi was harbouring the not too secret ambition to define the 2023 calendar in the Indian Wells meetings, and even if all the details have not been defined, it is likely that we will soon have a much more solid idea of what the 2023 season will be like.
Naturally there are various other relevant aspects to be defined: in the first place it will be necessary to understand if the WTA Tour will implement the same changes, so as to align the joint events. This year the Mutua Madrid Open has featured quite a bizarre discrepancy: the WTA event will start on Thursday with a 64-player draw (no byes for the top seeds) and rest days will be introduced in the second week. As a result, the third round of the men’s draw will be played on the same day as the women’s semifinals.
The part of the season which follows the US Open is still shrouded in doubts. China has not yet relented its zero-Covid-policy, which has led to a harsh lockdown for Shanghai, and immigration laws are still extremely strict. Travellers coming from foreign countries are subject to a three-week hotel quarantine. It’s unlikely tennis players will accept such terms after almost a year of “normal life”. Therefore, the situation, also as far as 2022 is concerned, appears to be rather fluid.
Neither can the Bercy issue be overlooked. Scheduled at the end of an exhausting season and just before the Nitto ATP Finals and the Davis Cup Finals, the Paris Masters 1000 often appears as an earthenware pot amid iron vases. A few years ago ATP had considered moving the event to February, and such an option could be pondered on again.
Great changes ahead for the Tennis Tour Calendar, which over the next two seasons may find a better balance in dividing profits between tournaments and players as well as an improved sustainability for facing the future with greater confidence.
