The president of the ATP, Andrea Gaudenzispoke with the magazine Tennis Magazine and spoke on various topics. Among them, on a Masters 1000 on grass, changes in the regulations and changes in the most important tournaments.
As is well known, there are few tournaments on grass on the circuit. Among them, the absent one is a Masters 1000 category tournament. About this Gaudenzi said: “There are three weeks between Roland Garros and Wimbledon. Grass is the only surface that a Masters 1000 tournament is not played on, this means that between Rome and Canada we don’t have premium content for fans, so a Masters 1000 on grass would make sense, especially in a market as wide as the German, number one in tennis in the 1990s. Germans love tennis and its history, just like in the UK, they have an equal chance of having a Masters on grass. Our plan is for there to be ten Masters 1000s in the future.”
Precisely with the contests of this type, the boss spoke about some changes and ideas that he has: “What we most want to strengthen are the interests between players and tournaments. We want a new prize money formula so players can share in their financial success, so the ATP will be a 50-50 partnership between players and tournaments. For more than 30 years, tennis players have not had the opportunity to engage in this commercial aspect, which led to complaints and mistrust, which was understandable. As a player and partner of the ATP, one is interested in those processes.
Finally, regarding the changes in the regulation, he stated: “I am a great believer in innovation, we have to adapt to new generations and technologies, to new consumer behavior. Of course the format can be improved, shortened, but the good games will always continue to be the long ones, the ones that generate more emotion. First we have to study how to improve our content offline, then we will think about how to use that data in line with consumer behavior and thus optimize the live product. I also have my traditional part, I don’t want to change the game completely.”
