MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — 4-time Grand Slam champion Carlos Alcaraz was unaware that there could be a class-action lawsuit filed in U.S. federal courtroom towards among the teams that run tennis and made clear Wednesday that he doesn’t again the trouble by the gamers’ affiliation co-founded by Novak Djokovic.
“There are some issues that I agree (with). There are another issues that I (don’t) agree with,” Alcaraz stated concerning the antitrust case when requested about it at a pre-tournament information convention for the Miami Open, the place he’s seeded second. “However the principle factor right here is that I’m not supporting that. In order that’s it.”
The Skilled Tennis Gamers’ Affiliation, which stated it had the backing of greater than 250 athletes, sued in New York on Tuesday and likewise took motion in Brussels and London, calling the organizations answerable for the game — the ladies’s (WTA) and males’s (ATP) excursions, the Worldwide Tennis Federation (ITF) and the company that oversees anti-doping and anti-corruption efforts (ITIA) — a “cartel.”
“Truthfully, it was shocking for me, as a result of no one advised me (something) about it,” Alcaraz stated. “So I simply noticed it on social media.”
He, like another gamers, was quoted within the 150-pages-plus submitting — one thing else that caught the 21-year-old Spaniard off-guard.
On web page 71, in a piece about onerous scheduling in skilled tennis, main title winners Alcaraz, Coco Gauff and Iga Swiatek are cited, together with this passage: “Carlos Alcaraz criticized the Excursions’ schedule, saying the Governing Physique Defendants ‘are going to kill (gamers) not directly.’”
That got here from one thing Alcaraz stated after a match he performed on the Laver Cup occasion final September, in response to a transcript of his information convention there.
“Lots of gamers (need) to play extra — or much more. Lots of gamers really feel like, OK, it’s a good calendar. And lots of gamers (say) that it’s actually tight and lots of tournaments throughout the entire yr,” he stated. “I’m the sort of participant who (thinks) there may be lots of tournaments throughout the yr, necessary tournaments, and doubtless throughout the subsequent few years, gonna be much more tournaments, extra necessary tournaments. So, I imply, in all probability they’re going to kill us not directly.”
The transcript signifies he was smiling on the finish of that passage.
The PTPA swimsuit ranges a collection of criticisms towards the governing our bodies in tennis, akin to limiting the prize cash every event can provide, stopping competitors from rival excursions or occasions, a rankings system that restricts which occasions athletes are allowed to enter, and a “heavy-handed strategy” by the Worldwide Tennis Integrity Company that the lawsuit termed “arbitrary and selective.”
