"Why is the schedule such a mess? Why are we getting such a small piece of the pie?": PTPA's Vasek Pospisil on biggest concerns for a tennis player

The PTPA was founded with a noble goal yet the organisation hasn't been welcomed warmly in the tennis community and Novak Djokovic heading it certainly doesn't help.

For the longest of time, the ATP and WTA have been the organisations that have driven the sport forward. Not all players were happy with the way they operated and the PTPA was formed as an alternative. Formed with a noble goal, the organisation is yet to find much popularity in tennis circles as the starting period was kind of rocky. Both Nadal and Federer came out and called for unity in the sport which didn't help its case and neither did Novak Djokovic as its leader.

The Serbian never held the same popularity as Federer and Nadal and pitting himself against them was always going to be a losing battle. Still, with time, more and more players spoke favourably of the PTPA with the organisation now having a board consisting of players. Co-founder Pospisil, along with Isner, Hurkacz, Badosa, Jabeur and others are now part of it and The Tennis Letter did an exclusive Q and A with them.

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Goals

The organisation has many goals but the main one is to deliver on the concers of the players. Asked what those are, Pospisil said:

"Everything. Why is the schedule such a mess? Why are we getting such a small piece of the pie? Why isn’t tennis making more money overall? Why do we players have so little say and impact within the structure of our sport? The more years you spend on tour, the more you start to understand some of the complexities of tennis and the answers to these questions. We need a player association to help players navigate through this challenger sport and maximize our professional careers, as well as help with the transition to a life after tennis."

Asked what they hope to achive by 2025, the CEO added:

"The PTPA hopes to be an institution within the tennis ecosystem, like players associations in other sports. We want to be around for decades and measure our success over longer timeframes. By 2025, we want to have carved our niche as the independent tennis player voice across the entire sport. We want to have a global staff and a self-sustaining business model in place so that we are around for decades. We want more players to have more opportunities across the board. We want a better drug testing system with due process rights for players. We want life on tour to be less burdensome, and to better support our players. Just because tennis is an individual sport doesn’t mean it has to be painfully isolating. We want to break through that and be a resource."

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