PTPA v. ATP Antitrust Lawsuit: Claims, Rulings, and Outlook

The PTPA’s antitrust lawsuit against the ATP is Pospisil v. ATP Tour, Inc., a case filed in March 2025 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York by the Professional Tennis Players Association and twelve named players. It accuses the organizations that run professional tennis of operating as a cartel that suppresses prize money, locks players into a punishing calendar through the ranking-points system, and retaliates against dissent. As of mid-2026, the case is still active before Judge Margaret Garnett, motions to dismiss remain pending, one defendant (Tennis Australia) has settled, and co-founder Novak Djokovic has left the PTPA.¹²

Who Is Suing Whom

The plaintiffs are the PTPA, a 501(c)(6) nonprofit, and twelve player-plaintiffs including Vasek Pospisil, Nick Kyrgios, Sorana Cîrstea, Reilly Opelka, Tennys Sandgren, and Nicole Melichar-Martinez.³ They are represented by Weil, Gotshal & Manges.²

Djokovic, who co-founded the PTPA in 2020, appeared on a draft complaint but was removed before filing. PTPA executive director Ahmad Nassar said the group wanted other players to step forward rather than let the case revolve around its biggest name.⁴

The defendant list changed materially in September 2025. The original defendants were the ATP Tour, the WTA Tour, the International Tennis Federation, and the International Tennis Integrity Agency. The PTPA then dropped the ITF (now branded World Tennis) and the ITIA from the New York case and added the four Grand Slam operators: Tennis Australia, the All England Lawn Tennis Club, the Fédération Française de Tennis, and the United States Tennis Association.⁵⁶

What the Lawsuit Alleges

The 162-page complaint is brought under Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act and describes an interlocking system that, according to the PTPA, functions as a monopsony over professional tennis players.⁷

Prize Money

The complaint alleges players receive only 15 to 20 percent of revenue at the Grand Slams and comparable percentages on the ATP and WTA tours, well below the roughly 50 percent splits typical in the NBA, NFL, and MLB.⁸ It claims the governing bodies fix prize money pools and block tournament owners from raising purses on their own, citing the Indian Wells Open, where owner Larry Ellison was allegedly prevented by the ATP and WTA from increasing prize money.⁹

Ranking Points and the Calendar

Because ranking points are available only through sanctioned events, players who compete in rival tournaments lose the rankings that determine entry into the biggest draws. The PTPA argues this system is what forces players into what it calls a “punishing” 45-week-a-year, eleven-month calendar.⁸⁹

Player Welfare and Discipline

Plaintiffs say they are required to compete in extreme heat and late-night conditions at events including the Australian Open and U.S. Open with little ability to decline. The original complaint also accused the ITIA of “abusive anti-corruption and anti-doping investigations and arbitrary discipline” used to keep players compliant, though the ITIA has since been dropped from the New York case.⁹⁷

NIL, Endorsements, and Retaliation

The PTPA alleges tour rules force players to assign their name, image, and likeness rights without adequate compensation, restrict endorsement and sponsorship deals, and impose non-compete clauses backed by fines for players who appear in unsanctioned events. It further claims the ATP strips pension eligibility and player-council participation from athletes aligned with the PTPA.⁹

How the Governing Bodies Have Responded

All defendants have rejected the claims. On filing day the ATP called the suit “entirely without merit,” pointing to rising prize money and new player pension funds; the WTA called it “regrettable and misguided”; the ITF cited its nonprofit status and reinvestment in global development; the ITIA said it welcomed the chance to defend its anti-doping protocols.¹⁰

In May 2025, the ATP, WTA, and ITF filed individual motions to dismiss or to compel arbitration, along with a joint motion to remove the PTPA as a plaintiff. Their arguments: player agreements require disputes to go to specific arbitration forums rather than federal court; the PTPA lacks standing because it has no formal membership or dues structure; and steadily rising prize money contradicts the claim of market harm.¹¹ The three remaining Grand Slam defendants filed their own joint motion to dismiss in December 2025.¹²

The Anti-Retaliation Order

On May 7, 2025, Judge Margaret Garnett ordered the ATP to stop retaliating or threatening to retaliate against players for joining or considering joining the lawsuit.¹³ The order followed evidence that the ATP had circulated a letter asking players to sign a statement disavowing the suit, and that at least one ATP board member had personally pressured Alexander Zverev and Ben Shelton to sign. Garnett called the conduct “coercive, deceptive, or potentially abusive.”¹⁴

She noted that professional tennis players are “vulnerable to economic coercion” because the tours are essentially the only avenue for them to earn a living in their sport. The ATP was ordered to distribute a notice within seven days confirming no player would face punishment for participating, and to preserve future communications with players about the litigation. Garnett declined to bar all defendant-to-player communications, calling a wholesale prohibition “unnecessary and counterproductive.”¹³

Tennis Australia’s Settlement

In December 2025, Tennis Australia became the first defendant to settle. The agreement, disclosed in filings published on January 17, 2026, includes no damages payment; Tennis Australia agreed to pay $50,000 toward the cost of notifying the prospective class.¹⁵¹⁶¹⁷

The PTPA’s lawyers called the deal an “ice-breaker” and said the discovery would let them build their case against the remaining defendants well before any court-ordered discovery deadline.¹⁷ The settlement class is open to any player who competed in a Grand Slam, ATP, or WTA event since March 18, 2021. It remains subject to court approval.¹⁵

Djokovic’s Departure From the PTPA

In early January 2026, Djokovic announced he was leaving the PTPA. He cited “ongoing concerns regarding transparency, governance, and the way my voice and image have been represented,” and said his values were “no longer aligned with the current direction of the organization.”¹⁸

Reporting around his exit pointed to frustration that top-ranked players including Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner had declined to support the union or its litigation, leaving Djokovic as the case’s sole current-elite advocate.¹⁹ The PTPA’s commercial arm, Winners Alliance, is led by executive director Ahmad Nassar and counts investor Bill Ackman among its backers. After Djokovic’s departure, the organization said it had funding “sufficient to last through trial.”¹⁶

Parallel Complaints in the UK and EU

The New York suit is not the whole action. The same day the U.S. complaint was filed, the PTPA submitted a formal antitrust complaint to the European Commission under Articles 101 and 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, alleging price-fixing of prize money, manipulation of ranking points, and restrictions on endorsement and NIL rights.²⁰ In the UK, it filed a complaint with the Competition and Markets Authority under Chapters 1 and 2 of the Competition Act 1998, making substantially the same allegations.²¹

Legal commentators have suggested European authorities may be more receptive than U.S. courts, given the Court of Justice of the European Union’s 2023 rulings in the International Skating Union and European Super League cases, which struck down prior-approval rules by sports governing bodies as unlawful restrictions on competition.²²

Where the Case Stands and What to Expect

As of mid-2026, the U.S. case remains before Judge Garnett. The motions to dismiss filed by the ATP, WTA, and the three remaining Grand Slam defendants have not been decided, though in a May 22, 2026 ruling on a separate motion, Garnett indicated she expects to rule on them “soon.” In that same ruling, she denied the PTPA’s emergency request for media credentials at the French Open and Wimbledon, but warned the FFT and AELTC that their “undisputedly retaliatory conduct” in denying the credentials could be considered in future proceedings.²³

Class certification has not been formally granted or denied. The Tennis Australia settlement still needs court approval, and the cooperation it requires has not fully begun for all categories, with some disclosure contingent on how Garnett rules on the pending motions.¹⁵ The UK and EU proceedings remain separately pending.

Experts have described the PTPA’s path to a courtroom victory as steep. Harvard Law professor Peter Carfagna said the case is unlikely to produce “seismic shifts” in the sport, predicting a settlement with modest reforms rather than a full trial. He noted the procompetitive justifications the tours can raise under the rule-of-reason framework (including the need for top players to appear at marquee events to sustain sponsorships and overall prize pools) present a strong defense. A key procedural hurdle is the defendants’ argument that players signed contractual waivers directing disputes to arbitration or specific courts; proving those agreements unconscionable is, in Carfagna’s assessment, “very hard to do.” Carfagna compared the likely outcome to the 2022 PGA Tour litigation against LIV Golf: a negotiated resolution giving players incremental concessions on governance or a modestly higher share of revenue, without dismantling the sport’s structure.²⁴

1
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