The professional tennis tours and two other defendants jointly filed a motion in federal court in New York to dismiss the class-action antitrust lawsuit brought by the Professional Tennis Players' Association, a group co-founded by Novak Djokovic.
“The PTPA is not a proper plaintiff in this lawsuit. The PTPA lacks associational standing and antitrust standing, and the PTPA’s presence in this lawsuit is not only redundant, but also an improper attempt to circumvent class-action requirements,” Tuesday's filing concludes. "The PTPA should be dismissed as a plaintiff."
The PTPA sued the WTA women's tour, the ATP men's tour, the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA), which oversees anti-doping and anti-corruption efforts in the sport, in March, calling them a “cartel.”
The players are seeking a greater share of revenues and raised various other complaints about how tennis is structured, including limits on prize money and a lack of competition from rival tours or tournaments.
The PTPA was started several years ago by 24-time Grand Slam champion Djokovic and Vasek Pospisil with the aim of representing players who are independent contractors in a largely individual sport.
The group repeatedly has made clear it is not a full-fledged union, does not have members and does not collect dues — all of which are pointed to in the motion as reasons why the PTPA should not be allowed to be a plaintiff in the case.
“The PTPA is improperly conflating its ‘membership’ with the population of top players on whose behalf the PTPA purportedly advocates, some of whom have already publicly disagreed with the PTPA’s advocacy,” the filing reads. “Because the PTPA has failed to plead that these players are actually its members, and in the absence of an alleged injury to any actual PTPA member, the PTPA has no standing.”
That motion came from all four defendants.
A separate motion, filed only by the WTA on Tuesday with the same court, says that the male plaintiffs — 2022 Wimbledon runner-up Nick Kyrgios, Reilly Opelka and Tennys Sandgren were among those named — should not be suing the women's tour, and also argues that the female plaintiffs — who include Sorana Cirstea and Varvara Gracheva — should be compelled to go to binding arbitration instead of pursuing the court case.
That filing says WTA players agree each to follow the tour's rulebook, "which broadly states that ‘Any Dispute’ shall be ‘submitted exclusively’ to the American Arbitration Association ... for a single arbitrator proceeding."
In a statement to The Associated Press on Wednesday, the PTPA said: “There is nothing surprising in their motions. We’ve researched all the issues at length, before filing our case, and look forward to responding in due course and having the judge decide.”
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Howard Fendrich has been the AP's tennis writer since 2002. Find his stories here: https://apnews.com/author/howard-fendrich. More AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis