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ATP players try to raise their weak voicesNo match for powerful tournament directors
Yesterday, while reworking my lead for my weekly foxsports.com column on the value of a clay-court upbringing (the last thing I wanted to do was write another tome on why the American men stink on clay - that's for next week), a question popped into my head: Why are the clay-courters taking huge cuts at ATP CEO Etienne de Villiers when it's really the tournament directors who are pushing him to get rid of two Masters Series and move another? For some odd reason, there's a misconception out there it's the players who have the most say on major tour issues. They don't and haven't had a significant impact in quite some time. When, for example, they are opposing ITF scheduling on Davis Cup, which is in concert with ATP tournament directors' wishes, the ATP brass gets solidly beyond them and broadcasts their comments. But, when the ATP CEO gets together with the major tournaments chiefs and starts reworking the calendar, they are barely consulted, or their opinions hold little weight. There are a number of analysts who seem to have forgotten that it was just a few years ago that Wayne Ferreira, Jeff Tarango and the Tielman brothers tried to form a separate player organization called the International Men's Tennis Association. They failed, but they certainly rallied some folks to their cause because many players felt that the tour was ignoring their concerns. They went hard at Mark Miles, but also barked at the tournaments for not giving them their fair share. Recall, too, that it was only a year-and-a-half ago that the ATP tried to legislate doubles specialists out of existence precisely because the tournaments were tired of what they considered to be a welfare state. Things were so heated that a prominent doubles player called one prominent director the Anti-Christ. de Villiers came in and saved the day for the doubles players, who did, by the way, still have to make some serious concessions to the tournaments. But let's be really serious here about who hired de Villiers in the first place: the tournament directors, who received, in my not so humble opinion, a rubber stamp for the players. You didn't think that Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Ivan Ljubicic had time to conduct extensive job interviews, did you? That doesn't mean that de Villiers is completely beholden to the TDs, but when he takes a look at the other six members of the ATP Board of Directors, he knows who is cutting his paychecks and where the power lies. Currently, it lies with the TDs and the major sports agencies. de Villiers has one vote, as do tournament reps Charlie Pasarell (the Indian Wells owner who is certainly one of the most powerful men in the sport), Auckland Tennis CEO Graham Pearce and Monte Carlo TD Zeljko Franulovic (back to him later). The players selected super agent Perry Rogers (Andre Agassi's agent), Jacco Eltingh and Iggy Jovanovic. I'll give the players two strong votes in former doubles standout Eltingh and Iggy, who used to be a communications official. But that's it. Rogers understands the players concerns, but he's a business guy first and is likely looking at profit as the primary motive. Plus, he's American and sees more potential in keeping four strong Masters Series in North America (Indian Wells, Miami, Cincy and Canada), than he does in saving Hamburg's or Monte Carlo's TMS status (although maybe Steffi Graf is trying to convince him otherwise.) I'm not sure how the vote broke down when the board voted on de Villiers recommendation for the 2009 calendar – which was to downgrade Monte Carlo and Hamburg, add Shanghai and move Madrid to the spring – but my guess is that Franulovic balked in a big way and stormed out, de Villiers and the two other tournament directors said fine, and so did Rogers. That's enough votes, folks, regardless of what Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and ATP Player Council president Ivan Ljubicic asked their player reps to do. Look, if the players want to make the ATP a "player organization," then they have to get the tiebreaking vote on board of directors. I don't believe that they've ever had that on a consistent basis from their CEO, so they are sitting clay pigeons when it comes to major issues like the calendar, unless they force their CEO to the wall, which they have done this week. Now, when they have embarrassed de Villers publicly with players like Ljubicic saying "ET doesn't understand tennis," they bring out a big stick by essentially saying that we are not buying into your calendar and you can take your mandated tournaments and shove them into your racket bag.  Click
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