Budget cuts put men’s and women’s tennis tour merger on indefinite hold

The creation of a joint commercial venture between the tours of the men’s Association of Tennis Professionals and the Women’s Tennis Association has been put on hold indefinitely as the women’s game faces the prospect of making significant cuts to its operational budget.

Negotiations over a merger, which would have meant the tours pooling their commercial and media rights, are understood to have broken down over the terms of the proposed revenue share, with the WTA in effect walking away from a deal that had appeared close to being finalised last year.

Sources with knowledge of the talks have told the Guardian that the WTA chair, Valerie Camillo, is unhappy with terms accepted by her predecessor, Steve Simon, who stood down after a decade in charge at the end of last year.

The ATP chief executive, Eno Pollo, said in January the two tours were “quite close to reaching an agreement,” but such optimism has proved unfounded.

As the smaller tour, with annual revenue of $142m in 2024 compared with the ATP’s $294m, the WTA theoretically could have gained from pooling resources and sharing revenue in the longer term, but was not prepared to accept the terms on offer.

The WTA is understood to have already begun to implement cost-cutting measures, with fewer operational staff attending some events, including Wimbledon.

While there has been no impact on prize money to date there is understood to be some concern in the locker room that tournament purses could be cut or frozen in future years, after the WTA took the decision this month to exit its three-year contract to take its finals series to Saudi Arabia one year early. Instead of being held in Riyadh, this year’s WTA finals will take place in Indian Wells, California.

Despite facing financial pressures, however, the WTA has no plans to follow the ATP in cutting its doubles programme. Under a proposal discussed with the players last week, doubles draws at ATP 1000 events would be halved to 16 pairs, with only eight pairs competing at smaller tournaments, and their share of tournament prize money would be reduced from 20% to 10%.

The ATP and WTA declined to comment.

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