ATP: Reilly Opelka - "Andrea Gaudenzi should resign"
Reilly Opelka , currently the best-ranked player from the USA in the ATP world rankings, has again called for a realignment of the ATP leadership.
by tennisnet.com
last edit:
Mar 12, 2022, 09:19 am

The name Adam Silver may not be familiar to every European sports fan, but the 59-year-old New Yorker's skills are well known in the US. Silver succeeded his legendary predecessor, David Stern, as commissioner of the National Basketball Association (NBA) in 2014. And continued the evolution of the NBA into a global brand. For this, Silver reportedly receives a salary of ten million dollars a year. Good money, even if colleague Roger Goodell in the National Football League (NFL) even averages 25 million US dollars for the year.
So Reilly Opelka is quite right when he thinks that you have to dig deep into your pockets to install a man like Adam Silver as head of the ATP. But Opelka also leaves no doubt that he considers this to be absolutely necessary, as he made clear again and again in a long interview before the start of the ATP Masters 1000 tournament.
"I think Andrea Gaudenzi should resign," said Opelka. "I think the ATP needs new leadership. This is nothing personal. To me they are nice guys. Massimo Cavelli (the CEO of ATP, editor's note) is a nice guy. But I just don't get it. Why are we looking for guys who've been to tennis? Nothing against Massimo, but you don't just go from being the Nike rep responsible for shipping packages or having Rublev deliver the right clay court shoes to CEO of one of the biggest global sports. Nothing like this happens anywhere else in sport.”
Opelka against Musetti in Indian Wells
In principle, this also applies to other areas, such as filling the posts of tournament directors. “When a new event is sanctioned by the ATP (like San Diego 2021), a member of the ATP Player Council, namely Danny Valverdu, becomes the tournament director there. He has no experience at all. No. But why is he getting the job? Because the ATP is a "boys club". This culture has to change.
Another sticking point for Opelka, as for some of his colleagues, is the distribution of the prize money. What the serve artist illustrates using the current example of Acapulco. "If everything is so transparent and great, why did five of the six best players in the world play in Acapulco in a brand new stadium with no restrictions on ticket sales? The stadium was sold out every night and the sponsors were the same as always. You have the name of Rafael Nadal , you have Stefanos Tsitsipas , you have Zverev - you have almost the best possible field. And the prize money is still lower than in 2019?”
For Reilly Opelka, who meets Lorenzo Musetti after a bye in round two in Indian Wells, none of this makes sense. “Why are we developing backwards? The best player of all time plays in Acapulco, along with five other best players - and yet the prize money is lower than in 2019.
Here the individual tableau in Indian Wells
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