The Missed Business Opportunity That Is Pro Tennis

It was a rare sight at last year’s pandemic-interrupted U.S. Open: a crowd. One afternoon in late August, a group of about 80 male tennis players in T-shirts and masks gathered at the Grandstand stadium in Flushing Meadows, filling up rows of dark-blue seats, like schoolboys assembled for a socially distanced class picture. The only action on the court below was a practice session. The 57th-ranked female player, Ajla Tomljanovic of Australia, was rallying with a partner, glancing up in bewilderment as the men applauded between points.

The group had been summoned to Grandstand by Canadian pro Vasek Pospisil and Serbian world men’s No. 1 Novak Djokovic. Frustrated with the slow pace of change in elite tennis, Pospisil and Djokovic were aiming to form a players association—not a union, exactly, but a group that could negotiate with tournaments for prize money and threaten boycotts when necessary. The meeting, convened via WhatsApp, was the latest salvo in tennis’s never-ending war with itself.