Changes for the ATP Bring the Promise of a Better Future

The ATP already announced some changes that will take place in a number of 2007 mens tour tournaments. Some of these changes include starting the events on Sundays instead of Mondays, reducing the number of best-of-five-set finals and using round-robin formats. These are the first steps of a proposal to increase tennis' appeal.

The initiative also includes the first extensive prize money increase since 2000, a 10 per cent hike at events currently at the minimum purse level. It has been more than six years since changes like this happened in the world of tennis, so maybe they might just see the light. The moves are clearly a part of a much wider project to renovate a sport that has seen slowly how its popularity drops. Another change would be that the tour is also increasing its marketing funds from $800,000 in 2006 to $5 million US in 2007.

The optimism is also relied in stars such as Roger Federer, he enters the U.S. Open more than half way to meet Pete Sampras record for the most Grand Slams titles at his age. Another hope star is young Rafael Nadal. The word is the ATP wants to see more changes that include figuring out ways to discourage top players to withdrawal from tournaments. The idea is to change the calendar, but this could take time so they came up with another one which is to threaten with fines or rankings point reductions, but if you think about it, this might even cost the players to come in at all, so yet another one is to reduce wear-and-tear by eliminating best-of-five-set finals at non-majors that use best-of-three matches earlier in the draw.

This year's French Open became the first Grand Slam tournament to start on a Sunday, and this allowed more TV exposure and ticket sales. Some seven-day ATP tournaments will expand to eight days in 2007, and the plan is to have Sunday starts everywhere by 2009, and it makes more sense since nobody opens a movie on a Monday morning if you want people to come and see it right, it is the day that everybody hates!