Tennis chief hints at copying Premier League after talks of super tour
Tennis could soon follow in the footsteps of other successful sports as rumours swirl over a super tour involving the four Grand Slams – including Wimbledon – and the Masters 1000 tournaments. It’s not the first time the sport has tried to repackage itself, with previous talks over an ATP-WTA merger. And the executive director of the Professional Tennis Players Association exclusively told Express Sport that following a Premier League model could be the answer to help the sport grow while keeping lower-ranked players in the conversation.
Conversations about reforms in the tennis world have been rife in recent years. Going back to 2020, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal started a conversation on X (formerly known as Twitter) to suggest that the two tours merged. There were new reports earlier this year that the ATP and WTA were holding meetings about doing exactly that. And rumours of a new super tour have recently come to the forefront.
According to The Athletic, the four Grand Slams and the nine Masters 1000 events – which could add a 10th tournament in Saudi Arabia – are in talks to create their own circuit. It would leave the ATP and WTA to control the 500 and 250 events, resulting in some concern that it could leave the lower-ranked players behind. Those who rely on smaller tournaments to win matches and earn ranking points may not be able to survive in a 14-event super tour.
But PTPA executive director Ahmad Nassar believes that any changes could instead serve as an opportunity for tennis to follow a Premier League model, with the top end boosting the lower tiers of the sport. “It is certainly something we are keenly interested in doing some more work around to see what’s possible. The details will absolutely matter,” Nassar exclusively told Express Sport.
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“I think the good news is the broader point that we have made for as long as we have existed is that the status quo is unacceptable. The way tennis is fragmented, the way the revenues aren’t maximised, the way the schedule is a mess. All of these things are just not acceptable and not becoming of a global sport and not becoming of professional athletes who are the best in the world at what they do.”
The PTPA – co-founded by Novak Djokovic and Vasek Pospisil in 2020 – prides itself on representing all tennis players, including those who are much lower-ranked and may usually be an afterthought. And Nassar thought a Premier League-style system with promotions and relegations could have a successful trickle-down effect.
He continued: “I think this is a unique, frankly generational opportunity, whether it’s what was reported [the super tour with Slams and Masters] or any of these other options, to fundamentally reform the top end of tennis. Similar to the creation of the EPL. And then that can elevate the entire sport because you’re going to care. You still need a pipeline, how do younger players progress? How do injured players or players who, for whatever reason aren’t playing the way they were playing before, how do they round back into form?
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“And so obviously very early but discussions around almost like a version of promotion and relegation. There’s lots of different ways to make it interesting and not leave people behind.” You’re still going to have lots of different tournaments, 250s, 500s, 125s, Universal Tennis events, that I think can feed into a system. The problem right now is it’s so fragmented. And that results in odd scheduling.”
But with ideas of radical reforms floating around for decades, why would this time be any different? Nassar, who regularly speaks with the tours and the Slams, thinks that the mere existence of an independent player group like the PTPA could be crucial in helping the talks materialise. “We don’t have the luxury that some others in business and in sports have of saying, ‘This is good, we’re fine with where we’re at.’ And because of that I think we can help push people to making the necessary changes to really bring the sport to where it should be,” he explained.
“There has never been an independent player focus, nobody has asked these questions. And I kind of framed my job when I took over a year ago as just really starting by asking a bunch of questions that should be asked if somebody was truly, independently representing the players. It’s hard to ask a lot of these questions if you’re trapped within a current structure. The tours love to say that the players have a seat at the table – they have a player council, they have a player board, they own ‘half the tour’.
“But then their player board representatives have a duty to the tour. So it’s kind of hard to assess a proposal from the Grand Slams to create a totally separate. As a player, you should absolutely want to know more about that. But if you’re trapped within the current structure, you’re not going to ask about that. Are you really going to ask probing, potentially existential questions about the legality, the structure of a tour absent of a labour union?”
The tennis world is in an unusual position, with seven organisations running different parts of the sport – the ATP, WTA, ITF and four Grand Slams. Whether through a super tour, a merger between the ATP and WTA, or another method, the PTPA boss believes that anything would be better than the current option.
“It’s hard to envision landing on one of those permutations that is worse than the status quo,” Nassar added. “I don’t see that happening. I think there’s only different versions of good that can come out of this.”
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