NEW YORK -- In the first steps of a bid to increase tennis' appeal, the ATP is making changes to some tournaments on the 2007 men's tour, including using a round-robin format, starting events on Sundays rather than Mondays and reducing the number of best-of-5-set finals.
The initiatives announced Sunday also include the first widespread prize money increase since 2000, a 10 percent hike at events currently at the minimum purse level.
"We see the light," said third-ranked Ivan Ljubicic, chosen Sunday as president of the ATP Player Council. "It's been a while since things like this happened."
ATP chairman Etienne de Villiers sees the moves as part of a broader project to overhaul a sport that's seen its popularity drop; the tour also is increasing its marketing funds from $800,000 in 2006 to $5 million next year.
"As a major, global sport ... we don't punch our weight. There's no question about it," de Villiers said in an interview. "But is it doom and gloom? No, because I think the momentum has definitely turned."
He pins his optimism in part on stars such as Roger Federer, who enters the U.S. Open more than halfway to Pete Sampras' record for Grand Slam titles. And to Federer's emerging rivalry with Rafael Nadal.
But de Villiers wants to see more changes, including figuring out ways to discourage top players' withdrawals from tournaments. One way to do that is change the calendar, something that could take time. Another is to threaten fines or rankings point reductions. Yet another is to reduce wear-and-tear by eliminating best-of-5-set finals at non-majors that use best-of-3 matches earlier in the draw.
In 2006, 13 ATP events had best-of-5 finals. As an example of what can result, de Villiers pointed to the Rome and Hamburg clay-court tournaments this spring; Federer and Nadal played a five-hour, five-set final in Rome, then both pulled out of the Hamburg event.
"I said to myself, 'This is one of the best finals I've ever seen.' And: 'Neither of these guys is going to be playing in Hamburg,'" de Villiers said.
The most radical switch involves the round-robin setup, under which players will be grouped to face off against one another, with the top player in each pool advancing to knockout rounds. That will be tried next season, with plans to use it more extensively in 2008 and 2009.
That format is already used at the season-ending Tennis Masters Cup. The advantage is that if a popular player loses his first match, fans can still count on seeing him play again.
"For some reason, if you don't feel comfortable, and you lose a match, you still can make it" into a tournament's latter stages, Ljubicic said. "I think everybody supported that idea. Players like to have room for a bad performance."
But it won't be used at all events.
"It doesn't make a lot of sense if you don't have a strong field," de Villiers said. "You don't want to see lesser players play each other over and over again. Does that make a better entertainment product? Probably not."
This year's French Open became the first Grand Slam tournament to start on a Sunday, allowing for more TV exposure and ticket sales. Some seven-day ATP tournaments will expand to eight days in 2007, and the plan is to have Sunday starts everywhere by 2009.
"Nobody opens a movie on a Monday morning," said de Villiers, a former Walt Disney Co. executive. "Why would you want to start your tournament on a day that everybody hates?"
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