ATP Announces Player & Tournament COVID-19 Support Package

The Coronavirus has had a large impact on many individuals and tennis players are no exception which is why ATP announced a COVID-19 Support package.

The ATP has announced a package of measures to support players and tournaments under continued COVID-19 conditions. The package covers a range of areas including prize money at ATP 250 and ATP 500 events and an update to the FedEx ATP Rankings system. It also introduces a new COVID-19 Protected Ranking provision to give players further security in the current environment, and an update to the number of player support team allowances on-site at events.

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Prize Pool

Between the Australian Open and Wimbledon, minimum prize money levels for ATP 250 and ATP 500 tournaments will be raised to 80% and 60% respectively, from 50%. The ATP Chairman Andrea Gaudenzi said:

"Our tournaments’ revenues continue to be severely impacted by restrictions on ticket sales, and a substantial improvement on this front looks unlikely before mid-year. Our focus is to ensure the Tour continues supporting as many players as possible and I would like to thank the top-ranked players and the Player Council for supporting this measure, which will help improve conditions for the larger player group over the coming months.

Rankings

The ATP has extended the ‘Best Of’ logic for the FedEx ATP Rankings through the week of 9 August 2021 (inclusive of Toronto). Results from all events between 4 March – 5 August 2019, which were not played in 2020, will be extended a further 52 weeks and weighted at 50%. This reduction will occur at the originally designated drop date for each event and the ‘Best Of’ logic will only count the better of a player’s two scores from the same tour-level event.

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Protected ranking

Players who are out of competition for four consecutive weeks will be eligible for a COVID-19 Protected Ranking. This measure is designed to allow players greater flexibility in their scheduling without having a negative impact on their ability to enter future tournaments.

Several other things will be intruduced as well such as on-site protocols and COVID isolation costs.