It's not only players but also fans who are suffering from the effects of this year’s ATP Tour schedule. Worst example up to now: Rome.

And it is high time something is done about it, because the topic is NOT a new one. In 2006, when player pull-outs upset the tour, Horst Klosterkemper, managing director for Europe at the ATP, could be heard lamenting: “We have to come up with a concept of a calendar and a new structure. No-one is happy with this situation, not the sponsors, the television channels nor the spectators.”

ATP chairman, Etienne de Villiers, also said: "It's clear though that we need to restructure the current calendar because it is not efficient.” And that the calendar restructuring had to be addressed by all partners involved. This sounded real good.

'What has become of the experts who the ATP wanted to call in to find out what more could be done to prevent injuries?'


Announced changes to the tour beginning in 2007 included eliminating five-set finals in non-Grand Slam events and eventually eliminating back-to-back Masters Series tournaments. They were meant to protect the health of players and limit the number of withdrawals. According to media ATP it was also intended to ask medical and science professionals to study the modern game to determine if more should be done to prevent injuries. This sounded too good to be true. And it was.

The previous year saw 384 withdrawals, i.e. every fifth player did not show up at a tournament as promised. And 2007 had a bad start too: at Rotterdam Tim Henman, Marcos Baghdatis, Mario Ancic and Lleyton Hewitt had to cancel their participation. The announced reduction of the number of Master Series tournaments should have solved these problems, reduced injuries and ensured top players took part in events … by giving players who did not show up at the required tournaments a fine and no points.

Such a caring and friendly way for the ATP to take care of ATP players and their health, successfully getting “all partners involved” - angrily involved that is.

Now it’s 2008. And the schedule is crazier than ever. Dates of US hard court tournaments (that is: a world tour calendar) have been moved because of US college basketball, crowding the hard court and the clay court tournaments in a tight schedule with back-to-back-events.

What has become of the good intention of ATP to eliminate back-to-back-tournaments to protect players’ health and limit the numbers of withdrawals? What has become of the experts who the ATP wanted to call in to find out what more could be done to prevent injuries?

And what about an “efficient” calendar? As Bill Scott has put it: “All the legal sparring and tournament-shifting is of little practical use without players to compete in the tournaments. Three weeks into the clay run, 23 men have failed to finish matches at six events, with five bowing out in the first round of Barcelona alone. Only Munich got through the week retirement-free.” Exactly! This is not what I call “efficient”. This is fatal to tennis as a sport.

It is high time for a solution. And actually ATP have given the answer already: restructure the calendar with all partners involved. Only – the ATP are not living up to its good intentions.

And the ATP does not have to call in outside experts to tell them what more can be done to prevent injuries. The ATP have a lot of experts inside their own organization, the Association of Tennis Professionals: The players.

Since 2007 players have been trying to make themselves heard by the ATP, asking for more player input into changes, in player meetings, signing two player petitions and voicing their opinion to the media. In 2007 Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Nikolay Davydenko and Ivan Ljubicic started speaking out in interviews and press conferences and kept on speaking out since then. James Blake, Andy Roddick and Novak Djokovic joined them in 2008.

The ATP was founded in 1988 because players demanded, quoting from the ATP home page, “a greater voice for the players in how the men's game was run." But suggestions were rejected by the Men's Tennis Council, then the governing body of the circuit.

The original idea of founding a new tour in 1988, again quoting from the ATP home page, “was for the players to form a new tour in which they would play a major role and bear greater responsibility for the future of the sport . . . .  tournament directors . . . . voiced their support for the players and joined them in what was to become a partnership unique in professional sports-players and tournaments, each with an equal voice in how the circuit is run . . . .”

That’s how it was in 1988, but it sounds very much like the current situation. It is high time the ATP remembered 1988 and why it was founded - by players. Tennis desperately needs this. The calendar needs to be restructured. And a solution cannot be enforced, it has to be discussed and decided by all parties working together.

Tennis fans who want to support the ATP players to have once again an equal voice in how the circuit is run, can do so by signing a petition here: http://www.petitiononline.com/tennis08/petition.html