Tennis Australia said yesterday it was confident that players would not boycott the Australian Open over a prize-money disagreement, but it was taking the threat seriously.
The Sunday Times in London reported players on the ATP Tour, which runs the men’s game, were considering a boycott of January’s tournament in a bid to gain a higher percentage of Grand Slam event revenues for themselves.
Australian Open director Craig Tiley said he did not view the reported threats to the opening Grand Slam of the season with alarm.
“We are working on a compensation plan for the 2013 event and are keen to ensure it addresses a lot of the issues players have been raising with us in our ongoing discussions,” he said in a statement.
“Our relationship with the playing group is very strong and I’m absolutely confident we’ll see all the players in Melbourne for Australian Open 2013,” he added.
At issue is the pay of lower-ranked players who often exit in the first round after making the long journey Down Under.
While this year they pocketed A$20,800 (US$21,605) for a first-round defeat at the Australian Open, some players struggle to make ends meet during the year, as they pay for much of their own expenses and travel.
Without a high profile, they are also unable to score lucrative sponsorship deals that could help sustain their careers.
“The problem is that the players that are ranked about 100 and lower are not making sufficient money to support themselves right throughout the year,” Tiley told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
“It’s not necessarily just a Grand Slam problem, it’s an all-sport problem and I think the entire sport needs to sit down and help address the issue, because at the lower ranks of our sport the prize money hasn’t changed in 25 years and that’s just not good enough,” he said.
Tiley said it was unfair to target the Australian Open, which this year offered the biggest prize-money pot in Grand Slam tennis at A$26 million.
ATP Tour players have reportedly discussed the possibility of a boycott and a meeting, which included ATP players’ council president Roger Federer, was held in New York on Friday before the start of the US Open.
Federer spoke about the meeting without mentioning a potential boycott, making it clear he would not reveal any details of what was discussed.
“Obviously there’s always going to be rumors flying, but as long as I’m president of the players’ council it’s always going to stay behind closed doors what exactly has been talked about,” he said.
However, Andy Roddick, the 2003 US Open champion, has previously spoken about the issue — remarking on the wide gap between the percentage of player revenues in the NBA and Grand Slam tennis.
“The NBA players were upset because they had to come down from a 57 percent revenue share,” Roddick said.
“The research at the US Open [showed] we were down at 13 percent of revenue [that] went back to the players,” he said.
“It just seems skewed in comparison to some of the other sports,” he added.
Todd Woodbridge, a former president of the ATP player council who is now Tennis Australia’s head of professional tennis, said while the idea of a boycott had been “thrown around for a while,” one was unlikely to happen.
“I would be very shocked if that were to happen. I think we’re in good shape,” he said.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but