No Aussie Boycott For Men and WTA Players To Meet With Tiley

Written by: Staff on 4th October 2012

No Aussie Boycott For Men and WTA Players To Meet With Tiley

epa01211170 Eric Butorac of the USA in action against the Australian doubles Nathan Healey and Lleyton Hewitt at the Adelaide International Tennis Tournament, Monday, Dec. 31, 2007. EPA/ROB HUTCHISON |

The news has finally come down that the ATP players will not boycott the 2013 Australian Open, but there is still work to do for the men’s ATP Player Council as well as the WTA Players Council moving forward on the issue.

ATP Players Council vice president Eric Butorac told TENNIS.com that the players will not boycott the Australian Open and “we’ll be in Melbourne in January with smiles on our faces.”

But Butorac, Roger Federer, Gilles Simon, Mahesh Bhupathi and other council reps will meet with Australian Open Tournament director Craig Tiley and Tennis Australia chief executive Steve Woods next week in Shanghai to advise the tournament as to how they should divvy up the prize money. Since the start of the season, the players have advised the Grand Slams to award more money to the earlier rounds rather than to the finalist or semifinalists. The doubles players are also expecting an increase.

It is anticipated that they will ask the Australian Open to do look more toward awarding the lower rungs of the tour, but the tournament will make the final call as to who is getting what.

WTA players will also meet Tiley during the WTA Championships during the end of this month to talk how the prize money should be assigned.

However, as of today, the only WTA Player Council representatives who have qualified for the Championships are Serena Williams and Andrea Hlavackova, so it assumed they will be going back and forth with other Player Council members during the discussions.

Other WTA stars that have been politically active and are sure to have a say during Istanbul are Maria Sharapova, Lisa Raymond, Liezel Huber, Sara Errani and Li Na.

“We’ve been speaking with Tiley and he will be coming to Istanbul to sit with our players to get their input on how the prize money increase should be allocated,” WTA spokesman Andrew Walker told Daily Tennis.

“This is another proof point relating to the Australian Open being a “player friendly” Slam. Ultimately the distribution of prize money will be Tennis Australia ‘s decision, however, engaging with the players is a key element of Tennis Australia ‘s decision-making process. At the end of the day, the WTA position will be aligned with that of our players, hence the next step being a direct dialogue between Tennis Australia and our players.”

On Monday, the Australian Open announced a 15% increase in its prize money to $30 million, said to be largest increase in the history of the sport.

©Daily Tennis News Wire

Topics: Atp, Australian Open 2012, Craig Tiley, Eric Butorac, Gilles Simon, Mahesh Bhupathi, Roger Federer, Sports, Tennis Australia, Tennis News, Wta, Wta Championships