Association of Tennis Professionals

The Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) was formed in 1972 to protect the interests of male professional tennis players. Since 1990, the association has organized the principal worldwide tennis tour for men, the "ATP Tour". The ATP's Executive Offices are in London, England. ATP Americas is based in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, USA; ATP Europe is headquartered in Monaco; and ATP International, which covers Africa, Asia and Australasia, is based in Sydney, Australia.

The counterpart organization in the women's professional game is the Women's Tennis Association.

Current ATP Tour

The ATP Tour comprises Grand Slams, ATP Masters Series, ATP International Series Gold, ATP International Series, ATP Challenger Series, and Futures tournaments. The ATP tour also oversees the World Team Cup, played in Düsseldorf in May, and the Blackrock Tour of Champions for seniors.

Players and doubles teams with most ranking points (collected during the calendar year) play in the season-ending Tennis Masters Cup, which is run jointly with ITF. The week-long introductory level Futures tournaments are ITF events and they count towards ATP Entry Ranking. The four-week ITF Satellite tournaments were discontinued in 2007. Grand Slam tournaments are overseen by the ITF and they count towards the players' ATP rankings. The details of the professional tennis tour (2007) are:

2009 changes

ATP tournaments in 2009 will be classified as 1000 series, 500 series, and 250 series with the final calendar yet to be announced. Broadly speaking the current Masters Series tournaments will be become the new 1000 series and the international series (gold) events will become 500 and 250 series events.

The 1000 series will include tournaments at Indian Wells, Miami, Monte Carlo, Rome, Madrid, Toronto/Montreal, Cincinnati, Shanghai and Paris. The end-of-year event, the Tennis Masters Cup, will move to London. Hamburg has been displaced by the new clay court event at Madrid, which will be a combined men's and women's tournament. From 2011, Rome and Cincinnati will also be combined tournaments. Severe sanctions will be placed on top players skipping the 1000 series events, unless medical proof is presented. [ [http://www.atptennis.com/en/news/2007/atp_events2009.asp ATPtennis.com - ATP Unveils New Top Tier Of Events For 2009] ] Plans to eliminate Monte Carlo and Hamburg as a Masters Series events led to controversy and protests from players as well as organizers. Hamburg and Monte Carlo filed lawsuits against the ATP, [http://montecarlo.masters-series.com/3/en/news/2007/lawsuit.asp] and as a concession it was decided that Monte Carlo will be a 1000 series event, with more prize money and 1000 ranking points, but it would no longer be a compulsory tournament for top-ranked players. Monte Carlo later dropped its suit. Hamburg was "reserved" to become a 500 series event in the summer. [http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/tennis/news/story?id=3048762] Hamburg did not accept this concession, but later lost its suit. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/tennis/7515523.stm] .

The 500 series includes tournaments at Rotterdam, Dubai, Acapulco, Memphis, Barcelona, Washington, Beijing, Tokyo, Basel and Valencia.

The ATP & ITF have declared that starting 2009 Davis Cup World Group and World Group Playoffs will be awarding a total of up to 500 points. Players will accumulate points over the 4 rounds and the playoffs and these will be counted as one of a player's four best results from the 500 series. An additional 125 points will be given to a player who wins all 8 live rubbers and wins the Davis Cup. [ [http://www.atptennis.com/1/en/2008news/davis_atppoints.asp ATPtennis.com - ITF and ATP Announce Dates and Ranking Points for Davis Cup by BNP Paribas] ]

Rankings

ATP publishes weekly rankings of professional players, ATP Entry Ranking, a 52-week rolling ranking and ATP Race, a year to date rankings. The Entry Ranking is used for determining qualification for entry and seeding in all tournaments for both singles and doubles. The Entry Ranking period is the cumulative points earned in the past 52 weeks, except for the Tennis Masters Cup, whose points are dropped following the last ATP event of the year. The player with the most points by season's end is the World Number 1 of the year.

ATP Race is an annual race from season start to season end. Every player starts collecting points from the beginning of the season. At the end of the season, the ATP Race determines which players and teams (first eight for singles and first four for doubles) can compete in the Tennis Masters Cup.

People

Etienne de Villiers is the current Executive Chairman and President of ATP with Mark Young as the CEO of Americas. Andy Anson is the CEO of Europe division while Brad Drewett heads as CEO of the International division.

The ATP Board includes Etienne de Villiers along with tournament representatives, Željko Franulović, Charlie Pasarell and Graham Pearce. It also includes three player representatives with two-year terms, Ivan Ljubicic as the European representative (temporary until election at 2008 US Open), David Edges as the International representative and Justin Gimelstob as the Americas representative. The player representatives are elected by the ATP Player Council.

The 10-member ATP Player Council delivers advisory decisions to the Board of Directors, which has the power to accept or reject the Council's suggestions. The Council consists of four players who are ranked within top 50 in singles (Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic and a vacancy), two players who are ranked between 51 and 100 in singles (Peter Luczak and Michael Berrer), two top 100 players in doubles (Yves Allegro and Eric Butorac) and two at-large members (David Martin and Martin Garcia).

References

ee also

* 2008 ATP Tour
* International Tennis Federation
* Women's Tennis Association
* World Championship Tennis
* Grand Prix tennis tournaments
* ATP Awards
* ATP Tour records
* List of ATP number 1 ranked players
* Tennis statistics
* Tennis male players statistics

External links

* [http://www.atptennis.com/ Official site]
* [http://www.atptennis.com/en/aboutatp/organization.asp ATP Organization Structure]
* [http://www.atptennis.com/3/en/rankings/ ATP Rankings]
* [http://www.atptennis.com/3/en/tournaments/fullcalendar/ 2008 ATP Schedule]
* [http://www.atptennis.com/en/players/ATP_Rulebook2008.pdf 2008 ATP Official Rulebook]
* [http://www.atptennis.com/en/players/ATP_Rulebook2007.pdf 2007 ATP Official Rulebook]
* [http://www.protennislive.com/frameset.asp?year=2008&wkno=12&lang=en&tabno=1&eventid=M006&ref=www.atptennis.com Live Scores (EN)]
* [http://www.protennislive.com/frameset.asp?year=2008&wkno=11&lang=es&tabno=1&eventid=0404&ref=www.atptennis.com/es Live Scores (ES)]