Andy Murray has responded to reports of a new Premium Tour in tennis and a potential Saudi Arabia deal.
Andy Murray has had his say on reports of a new ‘Premium Tour’ and possible investment from Saudi Arabia in tennis. The three-time Grand Slam champion shared his wish to see the ATP and WTA merge – something that will reportedly be part of a lucrative £1.5 billion ($2 billion) Saudi deal. But the Brit had some concerns about how things could backfire if the deal went wrong.
Tennis’ various stakeholders met in Indian Wells earlier this month to discuss reforms to the current tennis ecosystem. The Grand Slams are pushing a new Premium Tour model which would see top players compete in the four Grand Slams, 10 Masters 1000 events lasting 10 days each, a team competition and a combined season-ending championships. The lower-level 500 and 250-point tournaments would be downgraded to a Contender Tour.
But there are other proposals at play. According to The Telegraph, ATP chairman Andrea Gaudenzi asked the Masters representatives to stay behind following the meeting. He briefed them on an offer from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund that would see both tours merge with a 10th combined Masters event being staged in the nation. The ATP and WTA were said to have been offered £782m ($1bn) each.
Andy Murray has now had his say on both proposals. A former member of the ATP Player Council, he has often been outspoken about his support for equality. And he is backing the idea of a merger between the ATP and WTA. “That’s a good question. It depends what the alternative is,” he told Sky Sports when asked for his views on the plans.
“Because there’s obviously been a lot of talk about the Grand Slams and this Premium Tour. There’s obviously the possible ATP/WTA sort of merger which I think is a positive thing. I think that should happen so that would be beneficial.”
A merger could still happen without the PIF investment, as the two tours have been in talks over combining their commercial and marketing departments for months. But Murray admitted that he had some concerns over what would happen if the Saudis weren’t invited to work with the ATP and WTA, and whether tennis could end up with a rival LIV Golf-style circuit.
The 46-time career title winner continued: “If the sport doesn’t allow the Saudis to have some involvement then what will they do in response to that? Will it be like golf where there’s like a huge fracturing within the sport and that’s obviously not good. No one wants that.”
While Murray isn’t clear on what either offer entails, the 36-year-old is certain that he doesn’t want to see the sport’s best players leave the tour. He added: “I wouldn’t want any of the top players leaving the ATP Tour to go and play elsewhere so I don’t know. I actually genuinely don’t know all of the details to what the Grand Slams are proposing and also what the Saudi offer is. But we’ll see what happens in the coming weeks.”
Top players have already shown their interest in competing in Saudi Arabia. Novak Djokovic and Carlos Alcaraz contested an exhibition match in Riyadh in December. And they are both in the line-up for the ‘Six Kings Slam’ – another exho taking place in October – along with Rafael Nadal, Daniil Medvedev, Jannik Sinner and Holger Rune.
The PIF has already signed a multi-year strategic partnership with the ATP. As part of the deal, they have become the naming sponsor of the ATP rankings. The PIF is also a named sponsor of several Masters events, with their logo appearing on the courts in Indian Wells and Miami this month.
