The ITF formally launched the ITF World Tennis Tour last week https://www.itftennis.com/news/296053.aspx
ITF finalises new player pathway between junior and professional tennis
The ITF today announced the launch of the ITF World Tennis Tour in 2019 that will serve as a player pathway between the junior game and elite levels of professional tennis.
The launch of the tour is the culmination of a series of ITF reforms designed to support talented junior players in their progression to the senior game, and target the prize money effectively at professional tournaments to enable more players to make a living. The tour will also increase the number of nations hosting ITF tournaments in 2019, providing opportunities for more players.
The ITF World Tennis Tour forms part of a new worldwide tournament structure that has been agreed between the ITF, ATP and WTA in order to address the current challenges at entry level. Under the ITF World Tennis Tour umbrella, tournaments will be split into the following categories:
World Tennis Tour Graphic
The ITF has unveiled the ITF World Tennis Tour logo and sub-brands that have been created to unify the look and feel of the ITF World Tennis Tour across over 1,600 tournaments that are expected to be staged in 2019. Read more at https://www.itftennis.com/news/296053.aspx#rIfed5GUL1cDOhaL.99
More details on the ITF WTT are on the updated FAQs https://www.itftennis.com/procircuit/itf-world-tennis-tour/english.aspx#questions
'Geoff Grant joins the podcast to discuss the details of the new ITF 2019 transition tour, which is a part of a major restructuring of professional tennis. Grant and Wertheim discuss how the creation of the transition tourwhich includes a new worldwide tournament structure between the ITF, ATP and WTA and is expected to reduce the number of professional players with ATP and WTA rankings from 3,000 players to approximately 750 men and 750 womenwill impact tennis, at the professional, college and junior levels, particularly in relation to match-fixing'
Suggestions that the new ITF Tour structure will do nothing to aid the development of young players; will force more Internationals to follow the US college route (to the dismay of many US parents) and could lead to the rise of an alternative professional league.............
That was a hard podcast to listen too, especially the host was completely clueless and did a horrible job of painting the picture of what he was talking about (except making it excruciatingly clear it was nothing to do with Serena Williams or Roger Federer) basically because he didn't even try to!
it the oficial sports ilistrated and tennis channel podcast!
but at least they covered poor old stevie johnson ad nauseam
i mentshioned it last week in another thred becasue it seemed so bad almost iresponsibel from such a major tennis broadcaster
glad at least one other person had a similar impressiun
Qualifying draws sizes being cut too 24 at futures. For me this is the biggest problem as it makes it very hard (impossible?) to start your career without a ranking as you can't get into a tournament. There are now 3474 ITF ranked male players 2413 female players with only 56 spots per tournament each week. I don't see the upside in doing this. It costs $40 to enter a tournament. If your cutting the number of entrants, your cutting the number of entry fees collected making it harder for hosts to break even.
Having seperate ranking lists. This means if you play 50% futures and 50% challengers you could end up in no man's land on either list. If only there was a way to have one big long list....
Players being accepted with ATP/ WTA ranking being accepted into futures before players with ITF ranking. This means someone with one challenger first round win has priority on someone with five $15K tournament wins. Makes sense. Although to be fair, with the stupidness of having two ranking lists I don't see a solution to this.
Only 4 player ATP challenger qualifying events. I fear with late drop outs your going to end up with zero player qualifying as everyone is just going to get shunted into main draw with no alternates to replace them as not enough players are going to be hanging around to replace them and you might even end up with byes in the main draw. I reckon next weeks Noumea challenger is going to be interesting. Also the chances of players losing even in the first round of qualifying getting into the main draw as a lucky loser must be pretty high with 48 potential pull outs.
Interesting article written by nickw811 especially 'are the ITF right to make the changes?' I am in the no camp! I am also interested in why they have made these changes and why does it seem to have been implemented so quickly?
The Guardian suggested there has been 'a tsunami' of match fixing, but as far as I can determine most of this occurs at the 'lower levels' of ITF tournaments and the betting companies are losing money...... So are the changes and the speed at which they have been applied to benefit the sport or to appease the betting companies who (I believe) sponsor/have a financial input into tournaments?
Quick to spot a gap in the market, UTR are holding a UTR tournament running in parallel to the LA Futures for 'players who lose in the qualies or do not get in to the tournament' Not sure why players looking for ranking points would want to play in a UTR event? To my mind UTR rating is only useful for those looking for a scholarship to the US or players looking for match plays.
So the new atp rankings are out and it goes down to 677. Will be interesting how many it goes down to in a years time when no 25ks are involved and its just challeneger points. Id guess this will drop to below 600.
atp & kermode must be loving this
they forced itf to make changes under thret to brake away from them completeley so that they can concentrate even more money to they coffers
and now those changes have been done everyone is blaming the itf and the atp getting off scott free
new rules do exactly what the atp demanded - cull the # of pros - they must be laughing themselves sick this morning and having trebles all round
So the new atp rankings are out and it goes down to 677. Will be interesting how many it goes down to in a years time when no 25ks are involved and its just challeneger points. Id guess this will drop to below 600.
The number of players with an ATP ranking should increase through the year as with an extra round there are now more players getting main draw points at a Challenger event, although you don't get ATP points for qualifying in a Challenger any more. I think the expectation is most of those that gain 25K ATP points this year will have points from Challengers by the end of the year.
-- Edited by RedSquirrel on Monday 31st of December 2018 08:45:20 AM
However many more players get challenger points each week, an increase in ATP ranked players will of course be dependant on a good number of these additional points scorers being players without existing challenger+ points.
Be interesting how it balances out over time, particularly the opportunities for very good young players though indeed for all trying to make progress including late developers.
It costs $40 to enter a tournament. If your cutting the number of entrants, your cutting the number of entry fees collected making it harder for hosts to break even.
On this point, some tweets from Karue Sell (ATP WR 437/ITF WR 99)...
I just found out that the https://mobile.twitter.com/KarueSell/status/1080325246572363776
@ITF_Tennis
is charging a 40 dollars entry fee in every future now, even for main draw players. Like come on, guys. There's already no money in futures, have some decency. That money makes much more of a difference for the players than for you.
Yep I'm sure I was just charged an entry fee when I picked up my prize money hahah so yeah it's kinda insane. They always charged 40 for qualies but never for main draw. Now they are making up for the smaller qualy draw by charging main draw players..
I personally never knew you didn't get charged an entry fee in futures main draw (you definately had to pay in doubles at least) so would be good to get confirmed, although it would be strange if Karue had realised this before.
These are the entries for next week for an 18 year old, national junior champion, with a world ranking of 1900. First year out of juniors. What is he supposed to play in? Can you advise please, @ITF_Tennis
Strikes me that the changes have made it much harder for players to get onto the ladder as they make the transition from Juniors. Early days. I know, but the signs are not good.