ATP and WTA are considering a merger between the two Tours

• Tennis News
• Inside Tennis

ATP and WTA could give life to an historical merger, that could revolutionize the world of tennis. The idea of a possible union between the two main associations in world tennis is no longer an utopia, and the ATP and the WTA has been news in recent weeks.

According to what was reported by the English newspaper The Telegraph, during the US Open in New York, the leaders of the two associations, Andrea Gaudenzi and Steve Simon, talked about it, working on the merger. The British newspaper reports that a two-day meeting is scheduled for the end of September in London to discuss the issue and find an agreement.

The hypothesis of this merger began to circulate after the rumors about Saudi Arabia's increasingly concrete interest in investing, after the strong investments in golf with Liv and after the pharaonic market campaigns of Saudi teams in the world of soccer, also in tennis.

Saudi Arabia advancing: all Saudi investments in tennis

Among the innovations requested by the gulf state is the one already discussed with the ATP of adding a tenth Masters 1000 in Riyadh to the nine already planned for the men's tour, but the association has expressed the difficulty of the project, given the already busy calendar.

Furthermore, the Next Gen Finals have recently been assigned to Jeddah, without considering the longer presence of Qatar in the circuit, which in the last 30 years has organized a 250 tournament in Doha, with Nasser Al-Khelaifi, president of PSG, who also manages the Federtennis of Qatar, and which is strongly involved in padel.

In this sport it has brought about the historic turning point with Qatar Sports Investments, a fund chaired by the president of the Parisians, which formalized the agreement for the acquisition of the World Padel Tour together with International Padel Federation, to the Professional Padel Association and Damm.

From 2024 there will be a single professional padel world tour, called Premier Padel and governed by the FIP led by Luigi Carraro. News about the issue should arrive in the next few weeks, with the two CEOs of the women and men's Tours meeting to decide what the future of tennis will be.