The Scoop: Wednesday, April 2

IMTA: alive and kicking
Breakaway group holds first executive meeting; say it's signed 4 of top 10, 56 players in all

By Matthew Cronin
tennisreporters.net

Roger Federer

Susan Mullane/Camerawork USA, Inc.

It appears the ATP brass' belief that the breakaway International Men's Tennis Association (IMTA) would die on the vine was premature.

Rob Freeman, a lawyer for the IMTA, told tennisreporters.net the IMTA has signed four of the world's top 10 players and 52 others to join their trade association. They also hope to sign 10-15 more players in Monte Carlo, which begins next week.

Among the elite players, top ranked Lleyton Hewitt, Marat Safin, Roger Federer, Paradorn Srichaphan, James Blake and Yevgeny Kafelinkov have signed on.

"This absolutely legitimizes the organization," Freeman said. "We're very pleased with the number of players who have signed on so far."

The IMTA claims that ATP CEO Mark Miles dismissed the need for the IMTA in a letter to tournament directors, stating that "[the ATP's] representation of the players' interests is irrefutable."

The IMTA has been formed a trade organization that hopes to replace the ATP Players Council as the voice of the players, not as a rival tour.

The initiation fee hasn't been finalized, but sources say that it will be at least $1,500 per player.

The group's executive committee is led by South African Wayne Ferreira and includes American Don Johnson, the Netherlands' Paul Haarhuis and Belgium's Laurence Tieleman.

On Wednesday, the group held its first executive committee meeting and hired Tieleman 's brother, Henry James, as its interim executive director. Henry James manages both his brother and Haarhuis.

Freeman, an attorney at Brown Raysman Millstein Felder & Steiner in New York says the group is planning to take an initial action next week.

At a meeting during he NASDAQ 100 in Miami, the IMTA decided to formally requests financial information from the ATP, including:

• the audited ATP financials over the past five years,
• a listing of compensation for the top 25 ATP employees,
• a breakdown of the structure, management and performance of the players' pension fund
  ATP Master Series attendance figures,
• a copy of the study recently completed by consulting firm McKinsey & Co. regarding ATP operations,
• a complete breakdown of all costs associated with the ATPÕs relationship with sports marketing firm ISL, which later went bankrupt.

In the groups' mission statement, the IMTA says its goals are to:

• Improve and enhance men's tennis on an international basis
• Educate players concerning current operations of men's tennis, including administrative and financial structure, and rules and regulations of the ATP,
• Develop an agenda of player concerns to be presented to the ATP,
• Operate as a "players-only" trade association to be operated by current and former men's professional tennis players and their representatives.

IMTA representatives have said that they formed the group primarily because they "are concerned about what they perceive as the declining popularity of men's professional tennis worldwide. … Players are frustrated about limited information flow to players regarding the business of tennis, including prize money and pension management issues. … Players are concerned that men's tennis is one of the only major professional sports that does not have a 'players-only' organization to represent the best interests of players."