🎾 There is Tension Brewing in the World of Tennis

This past 8 weeks has been the hardest time for me to as a content creator.

There are now over 125,000 of you on YouTube watching, which is unbelievable. There’s now comfortably over 5,000 of you receiving this newsletter which is bonkers.

I haven’t tweeted since May, largely because I don’t have enough time to maintain a Twitter presence, but I’ve grown to 1,000 users on Twitter without any content.

Some of you may notice I haven’t uploaded on Instagram lately simply because I don’t have time to write, record, and get my short-form videos edited currently. Despite this, there are 25,000 of you across TikTok and Instagram too.

This platform has ballooned in size in 2025, and I’m super grateful. I can’t wait to reveal some of the things we have in store.

Today though, we explore a massive conversation brewing in the world of tennis where congestion and burnout are at the forefront of players’ minds. Let’s dive in…

Lately in this newsletter I have written a fair bit about pushing athletes too far. Well, in tennis Jannik Sinner, Carlos Alcaraz, Aryna Sabalenka, Coco Gauff and others are leading a campaign to change how alot about how the game is governed.

In March, the top ten players on both the Men’s and the Women’s tours sent a joint letter to the Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon and the US Open.

The letter outlined three main demands:

1. A larger share of revenue from the Grand Slams

   • Players currently receive around 16% of tournament income. The group wants that to rise to 22% by 2030. Sports like the NFL or NBA, where players receive closer to 50%!

2. Annual contributions from the Grand Slams to a welfare and benefits fund covering pensions, healthcare and maternity pay

   • The ATP and WTA already contribute $80m/year to similar schemes, but the Slams which generate most of tennis’ total revenue currently contribute nothing

3. Formal player representation in major decisions, especially around scheduling and format changes that directly affect workload.

So far, those demands have been met with polite acknowledgment but… no action.

Sinner said players had “good conversations” with the slams at Roland Garros and Wimbledon, but that it was “disappointing” when the tournaments later said they could not act until other issues were resolved.

Those other issues refer to an antitrust lawsuit filed by the Professional Tennis Players Association (PTPA), the group set up by Novak Djokovic that is challenging the existing power structures in tennis.

I made a video about that here:

That case accuses the ATP, WTA and ITF of operating a “cartel” that limits player freedom and suppresses competition. The Grand Slams have been added as defendants in that case and therefore they have have told players that while the lawsuit remains active, they cannot engage in formal negotiations.

The result of all of this? Players are increasingly frustrated and it is forcing Sinner, Gauff and now Aryna Sabalenka to take the issue public.

In their view, there is nothing stopping the slams from addressing player welfare benefits immediately, regardless of ongoing legal disputes.

They quite rightly point out that the Grand Slams have continued to increase ticket prices and broadcast deals, but most of the prize money growth has gone to top finishers. They want this re-distribution to be felt lower down.

At Wimbledon this year, the prize pool rose 7% to £53 million, but most of that uplift went to the semi-finalists and champions, leaving early-round players with smaller increases.

Despite the top players being the beneficiaries of these increases, their calls are for the sport as a whole to be better off.

Players are also increasingly vocal about the structure of the season itself.

The Australian and US Opens have both expanded into 15-day tournaments, adding a Sunday start to increase ticket sales and broadcast windows. Organisers say this helps spread matches and reduce scheduling congestion, but many players see it as yet another way to lengthen an already exhausting calendar.

There is also tension with the ATP and WTA, which have long co-operated with the Slams on prize money but complain of a lack of transparency.

Both tours typically learn of purse figures only 48 hours before they are publicly announced, leaving little room for discussion or influence.

It’s quite an interesting wrestle between all the parties involved. The ATP and the WTA are separate entities. Each Grand Slam does its own thing, too.

This is major reason why Saudi Arabia has begun to infiltrate tennis is a major way. Something you will soon learn in Episode 7 of the Saudi Series!

There’s a bigger tension beneath all of this. Most major sports have become addicted to constant commercial growth. More tournaments, more games, more formats, more markets. Each year must be bigger than the last.

But that growth comes at a cost, and players are the ones paying it.

Footballers talk about fixture congestion. Tennis players talk about burnout. Everyone wants more content to sell, but the athletes have limits.

Eventually, something will give. Either the athletes push back through strikes or withdrawals, or the system breaks on its own. There will be too many injuries, the top players won’t be there consistently and fans will start to turn away.

When that happens, the economics will follow. Broadcast values will fall, sponsorships will reset, and the sport will face a correction.

I don’t know when this will be, but I can feel it. The direction feels inevitable. As I said last week you can only stretch players for so long before it snaps.

There’s also only so long I can work a full time job and bring this content to you!

Something has to give there too.

See you next week.