Serbia's Novak Djokovic. [Source: Reuters]

The Professional Tennis Players’ Association (PTPA) has filed a lawsuit against the sport’s governing bodies, accusing them of anti-competitive practices and a disregard for player welfare.

The PTPA, co-founded by Novak Djokovic in 2019 to give players more power over their careers and earnings, said on Tuesday that after years of good-faith efforts to reform professional tennis, it had been forced to take legal action.

In a statement, it said that along with more than a dozen players the PTPA had filed papers in a New York court against the ATP Tour, the WTA Tour, the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA).

The ATP accused the PTPA of choosing “division and distraction” and having no meaningful role in the sport.

Legal action has also begun in Britain and the EU, the PTPA said.

Describing the various governing bodies as ‘a cartel’, the PTPA accuses them of paying “artificially low compensation to professional tennis players” and imposing a “draconian” ranking system that forces them to compete in certain tournaments.

It also calls the schedule unsustainable, says players are made to play in extreme heat and often in the early hours of the morning, that tennis balls chosen by the tournaments are a factor in causing chronic injuries and that players’ privacy rights are being abused by random drug tests.

Prior to filing the lawsuit, the PTPA said it met with more than 250 players across the tours, including the majority of the men’s and women’s top 20.

Serbia’s 24-times Grand Slam champion Djokovic has been a fierce advocate for change to the organisation of tennis, insisting lower-ranked players get a bad deal.

The ITIA, which manages the sport’s anti-doping and anti-corruption programmes, said it would not comment on the PTPA’s lawsuit. The ITF and WTA have also been contacted by Reuters for comment.

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