The Professional Tennis Players Association (PTPA), founded by Novak Djokovic and Vasek Pospisil, has been granted membership to the World Players Association (WPA). This recent announcement produced a celebratory response from Pospisil, as their organization becomes the sole representative of tennis players in the WPA.
Conceived in 2019 by Djokovic and Pospisil, the PTPA represents the top 500 players in singles and top 200 in doubles. After the announcement was made, the PTPA celebrated it's announcement into the World Players Association in a post on social media. The organization said they were eager to work to protect athlete rights, as they now have the responsibility of voicing the grievances of over 85000 players across 60 countries.
"Breaking: @WorldPlayersUtd has granted the PTPA membership, affirming its role as the independent representative for professional 🎾 players. We're thrilled to work alongside our fellow World Players members to protect and defend athlete rights worldwide," posted the PTPA on Twitter.
Co-founder Pospisil appeared elated by the news, stating in an additional statement that the PTPA was admitted as the sole representative of tennis players.
"Big news for the PTPA! Only one organization per group of athletes is accepted into the World Players Association as the athletes’ representative in each sport. After being thoroughly vetted and meeting their careful set of criteria, the PTPA has just been recognized by the @WorldPlayersUtd as that entity in tennis.
"The WPA previously rejected applications from our sport because of the lack of player independence and proper representation. This is a very proud moment. Thousands of hours of hard work have gone into this over the years. Wouldn’t be at this stage if it wasn’t for @ahmad4athletes and the whole @ptpaplayers team," wrote the Canadian on Twitter.
