MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — Four-time Grand Slam champion Carlos Alcaraz was unaware that there would be a class-action lawsuit filed in U.S. federal court against some of the groups that run tennis and made clear Wednesday that he does not back the effort by the players’ association co-founded by Novak Djokovic.
“There are some things that I agree (with). There are some other things that I (don’t) agree with,” Alcaraz said about the antitrust case when asked about it at a pre-tournament news conference for the Miami Open, where he is seeded second. “But the main thing here is that I am not supporting that. So that’s it.”
The Professional Tennis Players’ Association, which said it had the backing of more than 250 athletes, sued in New York on Tuesday and also took action in Brussels and London, calling the organizations in charge of the sport – the women’s (WTA) and men’s (ATP) tours, the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and the agency that oversees anti-doping and anti-corruption efforts (ITIA) – a ” cartel.”
“Honestly, it was surprising for me, because nobody told me (anything) about it,” Alcaraz said. “So I just saw it on social media.”
He, like some other players, was quoted in the 150-pages-plus filing — something else that caught the 21-year-old Spaniard off-guard.
On page 71, in a section about onerous scheduling in professional tennis, major title winners Alcaraz, Coco Gauff and Iga Swiatek are cited, including this passage: “Carlos Alcaraz criticized the Tours’ schedule, saying the Governing Body Defendants ‘are going to kill (players) in some way.'”
That came from something Alcaraz said after a match he played at the Laver Cup event last September, according to a transcript of his news conference there.
“A lot of players (want) to play more — or even more. A lot of players feel like, OK, it is a good calendar. And a lot of players (say) that it’s really tight and a lot of tournaments during the whole year,” he said. “I’m the kind of player who (thinks) there is a lot of tournaments during the year, mandatory tournaments, and probably during the next few years, gonna be even more tournaments, more mandatory tournaments. So, I mean, probably they are going to kill us in some way.”
The transcript indicates he was smiling at the end of that passage.
The PTPA suit levels a series of criticisms against the governing bodies in tennis, such as limiting the prize money each tournament can offer, preventing competition from rival tours or events, a rankings system that restricts which events athletes are allowed to enter, and a “heavy-handed approach” by the International Tennis Integrity Agency that the lawsuit termed “arbitrary and selective.”
