Coco Gauff Gives Honest Reaction To PTPA's Lawsuit Against ATP & WTA
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Coco Gauff became the latest top player to confirm she was not told anything about the Professional Tennis Players' Association (PTPA) legal action against the ATP, WTA, ITF, and ITIA.
The PTPA's decision to file the lawsuit has divided tennis fans and players. Although it shocked many, the ATP, in a statement responding to the news, said that it was not surprised since the PTPA has struggled to find a meaningful place in tennis.
Since the lawsuit was announced, there has been confusion about how many players outside the 12 ATP and WTA stars who put their names on the lawsuit knew about the PTPA's action before it was announced.
Carlos Alcaraz confirmed he was never consulted and made it clear that he did not support the lawsuit. The four-time Grand Slam champion could not hide his annoyance about no one from the PTPA contacting him before the lawsuit became official.
Coco Gauff offered her thoughts on the issue in a press conference after beating Sofia Kenin without dropping a game. The 2023 US Open winner confirmed that she found out about the lawsuit at the same time as fans.
"Yeah. I honestly don't have a lot of information on that whole thing, to be honest with you. I saw a post about it. I found out about it when everybody else did. I don't have any information on it that I can share, but, you know, I'm all for making the sport better and trying to make it better. But I don't know the details of it, to be completely honest. I just saw it on Instagram two days ago and didn't really look into it."
Gauff said that players receiving a smaller percentage of the revenue generated was the part of the lawsuit that she found the most important, but was also keen to emphasize that she is already in a financially privileged position compared to others in society.
"I mean, for me I guess the biggest thing would be not equity but more of a percentage of the revenue and prize money. Obviously for the women's side of things, making as many tournaments as we can equal to the men when it comes to prize money terms."
"I also can't sit here and complain. Like, I'm a professional athlete. I get paid pretty well to do what I love. You know, the amount of work is definitely less than the award, or the amount of work isn't equal to the reward obviously. I'm an athlete. There are people who do much harder things in this world."
"Yeah, I mean, if we want to compare it to other sports, of course, but if you want to compare to other things in life, I'm not going to sit here and complain."
Novak Djokovic, despite being a co-founder of the PTPA, did not sign the lawsuit and said there were aspects of it that he disagreed with, which surprised many because of his role in establishing the organization.
The PTPA's inability to get its co-founder to agree with the lawsuit fully and not telling some top players about it casts serious doubt about the entire process and whether it will come to anything useful.
