History
Started in 1972 by Jack Kramer, Donald Dell, and Cliff Drysdale, it was first managed by Jack Kramer, as Executive Director, and Cliff Drysdale, as President. Jack Kramer created the professional players' rankings system, which started the following year and continues to this day. From 1974 to 1989, the men's circuit was administered by a sub-committee called the Men's Tennis Council. It was made up of representatives of the International Tennis Federation (ITF), the ATP, and tournament directors from around the world.
The ATP requested and got the Men's International Pro Tennis Council (MIPTC) to introduce a drug testing rule, making tennis the first professional sport to institute a drug-testing program.
But the tour was still run by the tournament directors. The lack of player representation culminated in a player mutiny in 1988 changing the entire structure of the tour. CEO Hamilton Jordan is credited with the now infamous "Parking Lot Press Conference" resulting in their own ATP Tour. This re-organisation also ended a lawsuit with Volvo and Donald Dell.
By 1991, the men had their first television package to broadcast 19 tournaments to the world. Coming on-line with their first website in 1995, was quickly followed by a multi-year agreement with Mercedes-Benz.
Lawsuits in 2008, around virtually the same issues, resulted in a restructured tour.
Read more about this topic: Association Of Tennis Professionals
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“No matter how vital experience might be while you lived it, no sooner was it ended and dead than it became as lifeless as the piles of dry dust in a school history book.”
—Ellen Glasgow (1874–1945)
“I believe that in the history of art and of thought there has always been at every living moment of culture a “will to renewal.” This is not the prerogative of the last decade only. All history is nothing but a succession of “crises”Mof rupture, repudiation and resistance.... When there is no “crisis,” there is stagnation, petrification and death. All thought, all art is aggressive.”
—Eugène Ionesco (b. 1912)
“The history of every country begins in the heart of a man or a woman.”
—Willa Cather (1876–1947)