Association of Tennis Professionals

The Association of Tennis Professionals or ATP was formed in 1972 by Donald Dell, Jack Kramer, and Cliff Drysdale to protect the interests of male professional tennis players. Since 1990, the association has organized the worldwide tennis tour for men and linked the title of the tour with the organization's name. In 1990 the organization was called the ATP Tour, which was renamed in 2001 as just ATP and the tour being called ATP Tour. In 2009 the name was changed again and is now known as the ATP World Tour.^[1] It is an evolution of the tour competitions previously known as Grand Prix tennis tournaments and World Championship Tennis (WCT). The ATP's Executive Offices are in London, England. ATP Americas is based in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, USA; ATP Europe is headquartered in Monaco; and ATP International, which covers Africa, Asia and Australasia, is based in Sydney, Australia.

The counterpart organization in the women's professional game is the Women's Tennis Association.

History

Started in 1972 by Jack Kramer, Donald Dell, and Cliff Drysdale. It was first managed by Jack Kramer, as Executive Director, and Cliff Drysdale, as President..^[2] Jack Kramer created the professional players' rankings system, which started the following year and continues to this day. From 1974 to 1989, the men's circuit was administered by a sub-committee called the Men's Tennis Council. It was made up of representatives of the International Tennis Federation (ITF), the ATP, and tournament directors from around the world.

The ATP requested and got the Men's International Pro Tennis Council (MIPTC) to introduce a drug testing rule, making tennis the first professional sport to institute a workable and well-designed drug-testing program.

But the tour was still run by the tournament directors. The lack of player representation culminated in a player mutiny in 1988 changing the entire structure of the tour. CEO Hamilton Jordan is credited with the now infamous "Parking Lot Press Conference" resulting in their own ATP Tour.^[2][3][4] This re-organisation also ended a lawsuit with Volvo and Donald Dell.^[5]

By 1991, the men had their first television package to broadcast 19 tournaments to the world.^[2] Coming on-line with their first website in 1995, was quickly followed by a multi-year agreement with Mercedes-Benz.

Lawsuits in 2008, around virtually the same issues, resulted in a restructured tour.^[6]

ATP Tour

The ATP World Tour comprises Grand Slams, ATP World Tour Masters 1000, ATP World Tour 500 series, ATP World Tour 250 series, ATP Challenger Tour, and ITF Futures tennis tournaments. The ATP tour also oversees the World Team Cup, played in Düsseldorf in May, and the ATP Champions Tour for seniors.

Players and doubles teams with most ranking points (collected during the calendar year) play in the season-ending ATP World Tour Finals, which, from 2000-2008, was run jointly with the ITF. The week-long introductory level Futures tournaments are ITF events and they count towards ATP Entry Ranking. The four-week ITF Satellite tournaments were discontinued in 2007. Grand Slam tournaments are overseen by the ITF and they count towards the players' ATP rankings. The details of the professional tennis tour are:

2009 changes

ATP World Tour tournaments in 2009 are classified as ATP World Tour Masters 1000, ATP World Tour 500, and ATP World Tour 250. Broadly speaking the Tennis Masters Series tournaments became the new Masters 1000 level and ATP International Series Gold and ATP International Series events became ATP 500 level and 250 level events.

The Masters 1000 includes tournaments at Indian Wells, Miami, Monte Carlo, Rome, Madrid, Toronto/Montreal, Cincinnati, Shanghai and Paris. The end-of-year event, the Tour Finals, moved to London. Hamburg has been displaced by the new clay court event at Madrid, which is a new combined men's and women's tournament. From 2011, Rome and Cincinnati will also be combined tournaments. Severe sanctions will be placed on top players skipping the Masters 1000 series events, unless medical proof is presented.^[7] Plans to eliminate Monte Carlo and Hamburg as Masters Series events led to controversy and protests from players as well as organisers. Hamburg and Monte Carlo filed lawsuits against the ATP,^[8] and as a concession it was decided that Monte Carlo remains a Masters 1000 level event, with more prize money and 1000 ranking points, but it would no longer be a compulsory tournament for top-ranked players. Monte Carlo later dropped its suit. Hamburg was "reserved" to become a 500 level event in the summer.^[9] Hamburg did not accept this concession, but later lost its suit.^[10]

The 500 level includes tournaments at Rotterdam, Dubai, Acapulco, Memphis, Barcelona, Hamburg, Washington, Beijing, Tokyo, Basel and Valencia.

The ATP & ITF have declared that 2009 Davis Cup World Group and World Group Playoffs award a total of up to 500 points. Players accumulate points over the 4 rounds and the playoffs and these are counted as one of a player's four best results from the 500 level events. An additional 125 points are given to a player who wins all 8 live rubbers and wins the Davis Cup. ^[11]

Otherwise, the domain name of their website was changed to "www.atpworldtour.com".^[12]

Rankings

ATP publishes weekly rankings of professional players, ATP Entry Ranking, a 52-week rolling ranking and until 2009, the ATP Race, a year to date ranking. The Entry Ranking is used for determining qualification for entry and seeding in all tournaments for both singles and doubles. Within the Entry Ranking period consisting of the past 52 weeks, points are accumulated, with the exception of those for the Tennis Masters Cup, whose points are dropped following the last ATP event of the year. The player with the most points by season's end is the World Number 1 of the year. At the start of the 2009 season, all accumulated ranking points have been doubled to bring them in line with the new tournament ranking system.

ATP Race was an annual race from season start to season end but was discontinued beginning in 2009.^[13] Every player would start collecting points from the beginning of the season. At the end of the season, the ATP Race determined which players and teams (first eight for singles and first four for doubles) can compete in the Tennis Masters Cup, now called the World Tour Finals.

Current Rankings

Staff

Adam Helfant is the current Executive Chairman and President of ATP with Mark Young as the CEO of Americas. Laurent Delanney is the CEO of Europe while Brad Drewett heads as CEO of the International group.

The 7-member ATP Board of Directors includes Adam Helfant along with tournament representatives, Gavin Forbes, Mark Webster and Graham Pearce. It also includes three player representatives with two-year terms, Giorgio di Palermo as the European representative, David Edges as the International representative and Justin Gimelstob as the Americas representative. The player representatives are elected by the ATP Player Council.

The 10-member ATP Player Council delivers advisory decisions to the Board of Directors, which has the power to accept or reject the Council's suggestions. The Council consists of four players who are ranked within top 50 in singles (Roger Federer (President), Rafael Nadal (Vice President), Sam Querrey and Fernando González in 2010–2012),^[16] two players who are ranked between 51 and 100 in singles (Peter Luczak and Jarkko Nieminen), two top 100 players in doubles (Eric Butorac and Nenad Zimonjić) and two at-large members (Yves Allegro and Ashley Fisher).

See also

• 2012 ATP World Tour
• 2012 ATP Challenger Tour
• 2012 ITF Futures tournaments
• ATP World Tour Finals
• ATP Champions Tour
• International Tennis Federation
• Women's Tennis Association
• World Championship Tennis
• Grand Prix Tennis Circuit
• ATP World Tour Awards
• ATP World Tour records
• List of ATP number 1 ranked players
• Tennis statistics
• Tennis male players statistics

References

External links

• Official website
• ATP Organization Structure
• ATP Rankings
• 2010 ATP Schedule
• Official Live Streaming Website