Wimbledon has been made an example of amid the Professional Tennis Players Association’s lawsuit. The PTPA – an organisation co-founded by Novak Djokovic and Vasek Pospisil – took legal action against the ATP, WTA, ITF and International Tennis Integrity Agency.
Twelve current and former players were also named as plaintiffs, though Djokovic was not one of them. However, renowned tennis journalist Jon Wertheim has now questioned why the four Grand Slams weren’t named in the lawsuit, making a point about how Wimbledon spent their money on “ball machines in the UK”.
The PTPA lawsuit has sparked an ongoing debate in tennis. The PTPA and the 12 named players accused the four tennis governing bodies of “collusion to reduce competition” and “fixing prize money”.
The plaintiffs are also unhappy with the “unsustainable” 11-month competition schedule and the ranking points system among other issues. However, some players, like Carlos Alcaraz and Jack Draper, disagree with the class-action lawsuit.
Andy Roddick and Jon Wertheim weighed into the debate in the latest episode of Roddick’s Served podcast, taking an in-depth look at the lawsuit and the arguments being made.
Wertheim raised questions about the absence of the four Grand Slams and why Djokovic did not put his name on the lawsuit despite being one of the co-founders of the PTPA.
“The Slams are not individually mentioned (as defendants in the PTPA lawsuit), which is really weird,” he said.
“If you were trying to get attention for your lawsuit, the first thing you do is have the number one player in the world, the greatest of all time, who co-founded the organisation lodging the lawsuit, you might want to put his name on the list of plaintiffs if at all possible.
“If you can’t get him, you know what you also might want to do? People read this and their eyes glaze over ITIA and ATP and these alphabets.
“Wouldn’t you want to put French Open, Wimbledon, Australian Open, US Open? Wouldn’t you want to name the Majors individually?”
“I tweet that out and a mod responded, ‘Well, we have the ITF’. I’m not sure the ITF has jurisdiction here over the Majors. I’m not sure the ITF covers all the Majors for this particular point.”
The tennis journalist also thought the four Grand Slams would arguably be easy targets for the PTPA, given how they spent their money.
Calling out Wimbledon, he added: “The fact that the Majors contribute nothing, the fact that the Majors’ response is, ‘Oh, we’re non-profits, we pour this back into the game’.
“So Novak Djokovic wins Wimbledon in order to buy ball machines used in the UK? I’m not sure that’s a great deal.”
Djokovic himself has since explained why he did not put his name on the suit and claimed he didn’t agree with all of the arguments made.
“In general, I felt like I don’t need to sign the letter because I want other players to step up. I’ve been very active in tennis politics,” he said during the Miami Open.
“This is a classic lawsuit, so lawyers to lawyers, type of situation. So to be quite frank with you, there are things that I agree with in the lawsuit, and then there are also things that I don’t agree with.
“And I found that maybe some wording was quite strong in there, but I guess the legal team knows what they are doing and what kind of terminology they’re supposed to use in order to get the right effect.”