Pro Tennis Rocked by Explosive Lawsuit Over Internal Power Struggle

With Wimbledon’s main draw starting Monday, a War of the Roses–type power struggle has erupted within the Professional Tennis Players Association, with one group of players and officials suing another group and other executives. 

The core allegations include that Winners Alliance, the principal funder of the PTPA since 2023, has milked the players’ group and failed in its economic promises. Meanwhile, what the plaintiffs allege is that an illegal board led by former executive director Ahmad Nassar has taken control of the group illicitly and ousted employees who were investigating his conduct. Nassar is also charged with violating his fiduciary duty to PTPA because of his executive role with Winners Alliance, while PTPA co-founder Vasek Pospisil is charged with taking payments from Winners Alliance that clouded his role with the players group.

The listed plaintiffs in the lawsuit are the PTPA, Saisai Zheng, and Marco Trungelliti. The defendants are Nassar, Pospisil, Bethanie Mattek-Sands, Hubert Hurkacz, Ons Jabeur, Winners Alliance, and Romain Rosenberg. Depending on which side you are speaking with, Rosenberg is either the current executive director (argued by the defendants) or the former executive director who was fired for verbal abuse of a PTPA employee. 

Winners Alliance, which is backed in part by financier Bill Ackman, agreed to fund the PTPA at a minimum of $3 million a year, but promises of a group licensing program that would far exceed that figure never materialized.

“Rather than maximize the PTPA Rights, Winners Alliance diverted its capital and attention elsewhere—deploying, upon information and belief, more than $25 million into an unrelated track-and-field venture, and pursuing rights in cricket and international basketball—while the Association’s rights languished,” according to the lawsuit. The track and field venture is Grand Slam Track, which is currently in Chapter 11.

On June 3, according to the lawsuit, what is described as the “lawful” executive committee that included Zheng, Trungelliti, Taylor Townsend, and Arina Rodionova, voted to sack Rosenberg over allegations of verbal abuse toward PTPA employee Anastasia Skavronskaia. And the committee authorized general counsel Wajid Mir to investigate Nassar. The next day, what the lawsuit terms the “Fake” committee, constituted by the defendants, met and ignored the other committee, and cut off funds to the plaintiffs and took control of the organization.

“A more transparent and naked attempt to shut down an incriminating probe—by a registered nonprofit nonetheless—and retaliate against any truthseekers would be hard to imagine,” according to the complaint. “And, in the coming weeks, in response to PTPA’s repeated attempts to have its access and agency restored, Winners Alliance, Defendant Nassar, the Fake Executive Committee, and their affiliates dealt from the bottom of the deck, threatening players, issuing completely meritless defamation threats, and issuing false public communications regarding the status of a registered, IRS-reporting nonprofit. “

The lawsuit asks the court to restore the “lawful” committee, enjoining the defendants from communicating that they operate the PTPA and forcing them to return control to Mir and the plaintiffs, and damages to reflect the money lost to Winners Alliance’s failure to market the PTPA. The complaint estimates that the figure exceeds $45 million.

“The PTPA terminated Mir on June 4, 2026, following serious misconduct,” a source close to the defendants said. “He continues to misrepresent his status…[he] has no authority to act, speak or negotiate for the PTPA in any respect.” This source said the lawsuit was filed without PTPA authorization and disavows it.