The ATP are trying to prevent the steveg site and MTF from publishing entry lists in advance. They were never "official" publishings, just from people who had access to the ATP Playerzone site where they are shown; now the ATP is saying the lists cannot be published until the Tournament Directors publish them.

Now, I usually help out on the rankings threads by looking at the entry lists to find out who is playing where each week.  I can tell you now that this is going to be very inaccurate if this happens - not to mention more time-consuming, having to find each separate tournament website instead of just steveg for ATP and Challenger tournaments.  Tournament Directors do not always publish the full lists; and if they do, they frequently withhold details of withdrawals, presumably in the hope that if people do not know their favourite player has withdrawn they will still turn up and pay their entrance fees.

It means accurate information will not be available until the actual draws are published right at the last minute.

I cannot seriously imagine that this information being known among tennis "geeks" such as ourselves is going to make any serious inroads into ticket sales - and for some, may even be detrimental as people may make arrangements to travel to tournaments because they know, from the entry lists, that certain players are likely to play if they are near the top of the alternate lists - and the tournaments NEVER publish those.

Sorry for the long whinge but this has been festering in my mind since I first heard and I needed to get it off my chest!