Judging by the volume of coverage on my Twitter feed, the biggest story in American sports this summer wasn't the NBA Finals or the seventh game of the Stanley Cup finals. No, all of that was overshadowed by a story of athletes off the field, in suits, walking in and out of air-conditioned conference rooms, negotiating on ... I'm not sure exactly what. But whatever it was, the NFL's lockout made a lot of headlines.
All of which made me temporarily happy, as a fan anyway, that tennis doesn't suffer from these dreary potential work stoppages. But that's not necessarily a good thing for the players; the men's putative union, the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP), is really a hybrid organization run for the good of both the players and the tournament directors?for the good of labor and management together?and that can leave the players with a weak and disorganized hand compared to other sports.
In many ways, considering where it began, it's a triumph that the ATP has come this far. Until it was formed in 1972, tennis players had absolutely no say in anything; the sport was run by autocratic amateur officials, who wouldn't even offer them prize money for their labors until 1968. For its first 15 years, the ATP was part of an unstable governing mix that included players, tournament directors, freelance agents and promoters as well as representatives from the old amateur guard, in the form of the International Tennis Federation (ITF). Finally, in 1988, after calling an impromptu press conference in the parking lot at the U.S. Open, the players went their own way. You can't say they've done a bad job. Prize money has in increased relentlessly; there are tournaments all over the world, all year long; and, most important, the ATP, which had for years wanted to get the top players to face each other more often, pulled it off with their most significant and lasting innovation, the Masters Series.
But the game remains divided, and the old guard lingers, in the form of the ITF-run Grand Slams and Davis Cup. More than that, the players themselves remain divided. Apropos for an individual sport, the agendas, needs and desires of the pros differ widely. Although Rafael Nadal and Andy Roddick want to shorten the season, the same can't be said for guys ranked below them, who need all the tournaments, matches, wins and money they can get while they can get it. Are there any issues where a more unified union?a more perfect union?could bring a change? Let's take a look at a few:
Schedule: As I said, we regularly hear players complain that the season is too long, but these are generally the guys at the top, who can afford to take a few months off, and who go deep enough in each tournament to make it much more of grind than it is for the players who go out early. From a fan's perspective, I think the season should be shortened, to give everyone a chance to miss tennis and then relish it when it comes back again. To get this to happen, there would have to be agreement among the game's administrators that the health and welfare of the stars?rather than the tournament directors or the rank-and-file players?are what matter. Short of Federer, Nadal and Djokovic boycotting the fall season, that seems unlikely.
Davis Cup: This is a clearer case of the players fighting the officials. The ITF, rather than the ATP, runs the Davis Cup, and a determined effort to make a change is plausible, if the players decide en masse to create a new, less onerous team competition. The problem is, as Novak Djokovic proved last year, the players, even the top guys, really like being involved in Davis Cup.
Drug Testing: There's a divide here, as well, between players who think the whereabouts system is too invasive and those who believe, as painful as it may be, that it needs to be done. It's been reported that Federer, Nadal and Djokovic, during their time on the player council, have disagreed over the right approach to this issue. Like Davis Cup, this is another case where a strong union stand might bring concessions from the ITF, which administers the testing. But as a fan and writer who wants to believe that the game is clean, and who thinks whereabouts is a necessary evil, this is one time when I'm glad they haven't gotten together.
This article was originally published on ESPN.com.
Source: http://feeds.tennis.com/~r/tenniscom-features/~3/XpukcUG7Ce8/
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