Tennis’ world governing body, the International Tennis Federation, has accused the men’s professional tour, the ATP, of blocking change that could alleviate the struggles of players at the lower levels of the game.
The ITF has borne the brunt of fierce criticism of major structural alterations to the sport that came into force at the beginning of the year.
The number of players deemed professional has been slashed, with ATP and WTA (women’s tour), ranking points no longer available for the smallest tournaments, which instead now award ITF points.
In announcing the changes, the ITF hoped that around 750 men and a similar number of women would be classed as truly professional but admits that currently the system is only working for the top 350 men.
Those players are catered for by the main ATP Tour and the secondary Challenger Tour, but below that the ATP, unlike the WTA on the women’s side, is currently refusing to award all but a few ranking points for the series of $US25,000 tournaments.
Kris Dent, the ITF’s senior executive director of professional tennis, said: “We have spoken to them a number of times and made this request. To date they haven’t agreed to put those points back in.”
High-profile coaches like Toni Nadal, Patrick Mouratoglou and Magnus Norman have all voiced their concerns and the ITF insists it is listening.
Alterations have already been made, with a small increase in the size of qualifying draws announced last month and further changes detailed on Wednesday.
These include another increase in qualifying to boost the number of players able to compete each week as well as the regulation of pre-qualifying, which has been a major bone of contention.
Some tournaments were taking advantage of players desperate to get into their events by setting up pre-qualifying rounds that required entrants to stay in official hotels.
Discussions will be had, meanwhile, about expanding qualifying draws further to 48 players, meaning players would have to play two matches in one day.
In announcing changes, the ITF stated it hoped that around 750 men and a similar number of women would be classed as truly professional but admits that currently the system is only working for the top 350 men.
