Association of Tennis Professionals

The Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) is the association of professional male tennis players , making it the counterpart to the Women's Tennis Association (WTA). The International Tennis Federation (ITF), which determines the rules of the game, stands above ATP and WTA . The headquarters of ATP and ITF are in London .

history

It was founded in 1972 in order to be able to better market tennis tournaments. Founding members were Jack Kramer , Donald Dell and Cliff Drysdale , the latter becoming the first president. Kramer held the post of Executive Director . Until 1988, the current tour was mainly determined by the tournament directors, which ultimately resulted in a player boycott. The then CEO of ATP, Hamilton Jordan , held as part of the US Open in 1988 as "press conference in the parking lot" ( German press conference in the parking lot ) famous speech, have led to the establishment of today's ATP Tour was. With the establishment of the ATP Tour, which existed from 1990 to 2008, tennis was better marketed and made more professional. In its first year of existence (1991), a milestone was set with the conclusion of a contract with a television station that guaranteed 19 tournament broadcasts a year. After years of success and increasing interest in the series, the name was changed to ATP World Tour in 2009. From 2019 the series will be called the ATP Tour, as it was from 1990 to 2008.

On average, around 60 tournaments are held each year. 62 tournaments appear in the schedule for the coming season. Compared to the 2014 season , one less tournament will be played in 2015 , but there are two additional ATP 500 competitions.

ATP tour

→ Main article: ATP Tour

The ATP organizes the so-called ATP Tour, a men's tennis series. Most professional tournaments are part of it. The most important tournaments belonging to the ATP Tour are the nine Masters Series tournaments. The Grand Slam tournaments and the Davis Cup are not part of the ATP Tour as they are organized by the ITF. The ATP Finals at the end of each season are jointly organized by the ATP and ITF.

ATP Challenger Tour

→ Main article: ATP Challenger Tour

ATP Champions Tour

→ Main article: ATP Champions Tour

World ranking

→ Main article: World tennis ranking

Since it was founded, the ATP has also kept the player's point rankings. Formerly the tennis world rankings known entry system controls start authorization and seedings at tournaments. The points collected in the last 52 weeks (i.e. the current annual period) are included in this evaluation. Since this system is difficult to overlook for the broad mass of tennis fans, the so-called Champions Race has also existed since 2000 . At the beginning of the season, all players start from scratch - a system that is already familiar from Formula 1 , for example .

organization

Brad Drewett was President from 2012 , succeeding Adam Helfant. The position initially became vacant after Drewett passed away in May 2013. On January 1, 2014, Chris Kermode succeeded Drewett. The President formally presides over the seven-member Board of Directors . It also includes three tournament representatives (currently Mark Webster, Gavin Forbes and Graham Pearce) and three player representatives (currently Justin Gimelstob , David Edges and Giorgio di Palermo ).

In addition to the Board of Directors, there is the 11-person Player Council and the 13- person Tournament Council .