Tennis: Stan Wawrinka tackles Grand Slam tournaments which “don’t want to cut part of their cake”

ATP-backed Saudi Arabia is reportedly offering two billion dollars and a merger of the tours. A “take it or leave it” offer, which would expire in three months, as revealed by The Telegraph. A project which is opposed to that proposed by the Grand Slams. For the moment, the players are very discreet on this hot topic. Former world number 3 Stan Wawrinka (38 years old) spoke in the Team And his choice is clear. The winner of Roland-Garros 2015 believes that the premium circuit backed by the Grand Slams and supported by the director of the Australian Open, the South African Craig Tiley, has little chance of happening. The Swiss especially stigmatizes the attitude and the role of the four Grand Slams: “Today, there are four tournaments, those of the Grand Slam, which make the majority of the profit in tennis. And who only redistribute to a minimum of people, in the sense that the majority of their profit goes to their federation, directly. The Grand Slams have zero transparency on their accounts. They do not work for the vision of the future of tennis, have no desire to work in the management of players and the youngest, say nothing about pensions. They don’t want to approach others, to cut part of their cake. the concrete of their proposals is to have even more power, to make the ATP and the WTA disappear, to keep the Masters 1000 and to kill the 500 and the 250.”

For the Vaudois, the entry of the Saudis into the world of tennis could be very positive on the other hand: “Saudi Arabia entered tennis through sponsorship and the organization of the NextGen tournament. We know that tennis is their top priority in sport for the coming years. They support the players fully, they really want to get in there. For now, there is only positive coming from them. They have probably learned from their mistakes with the LIV in golf and they want to do things right by joining the Tour. It would be a good thing for tennis to take them from the ATP. This would allow the ATP to be much more solid in setting the rules of the game.”