ITF introduce necessary World Tennis Tour changes, but is it enough?
The last day of 2018 saw the most significant changes in the professional tennis ranking structure, reducing the number of players on the ATP and WTA ranking lists and introducing the ITF World Tennis Rankings for those who are mainly competing on the ITF Futures events. With an aim to make the sport more compact and organized and offer the upcoming stars more accessible path towards Challengers and the ATP level, the majority of players have been left without ATP or WTA points, starting all over again from the ITF World Tour where they faced numerous problems in the past three months.
First of all, there are no ATP or WTA points at the lowest-tier events ($15,000), the qualifying draws were reduced and the number of tournaments has also decreased, leaving the players without the opportunity to compete and chase their tennis dreams. Organized in Facebook groups, the lower-ranked players have kicked off Change the ITF Tennis Rules petition that has been signed by 15,000 players and tennis fans from all over the world, forcing ITF to make some necessary changes and improvements. The ITF Board of Directors have met on March 19-20 in Miami and they have approved the following modifications in the structure:
- Where Pre-Qualifying / Wild Card competitions are created to offer additional playing opportunities, such events will be governed by the full ITF World Tennis Tour regulations;
- An increase in the Singles Qualifying Draw at Women’s World Tennis Tour $60,000, $80,000 and $100,000 tournaments from 24 to 32, where tournaments have the capacity;
- The introduction of a Protected Ranking for the ITF World Tennis Singles and Doubles Rankings;
- Introduction of two (2) reserved places in $15,000 tournament Doubles Draws for teams to be accepted by ATP/WTA/ITF Doubles ranking;
- Introduction of two (2) reserved places in $25,000 tournament Doubles Draws for teams to be accepted by ITF Doubles ranking;
- Improved processing of Tournament Acceptance Lists after the Freeze Deadline to display withdrawals and remove Alternates from all but their highest priority tournament in order to provide more predictable playing opportunities for players;
- An increase in the number of year-end Junior Exempt Project places from three (3) to five (5) for elite ITF Junior players;
- To canvas player feedback on potential introduction of 48 qualifying draws noting that playing twice a day without a day off risks player health issues.
from Tennis World USA https://ift.tt/2TN2Z3u
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