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Taylor Fritz is riding high off an Olympic bronze medal and is currently the top-ranked American men’s singles player at No. 12 in the world. But there’s one thing he’d love to add to his credentials: union membership.
Fritz tells Front Office Sports Today the lack of a union for tennis players is a problem but also unlikely to change.
“Absolutely,” Fritz said when asked whether tennis needs a union. “Because of the fact we’re technically independent contractors, we’re actually not allowed to unionize. We’re pretty much the only sport that doesn’t have a player union. And it’s pretty crazy because there’s a lot of things that are decided, [are] in favor of the tournaments and not in favor of the players. And there’s nothing we can actually do about it.”
Other individual sports like golf and running have similar issues.
The PGA has had player committees in the past, recently to combat the rise of LIV Golf and help determine the future of the PGA.
Fritz said prize money is one area in which players get hurt because of the lack of a union.
“Indian Wells wanted to up the prize money and make it the highest-paying tournament, and the board voted against it because they wanted all of that level [tournaments] to have prize money that’s similar,” Fritz says. “They didn’t want one to be way above the other. So that’s against the players’ interest that we could have made more money. There was no negative for the players. So there’s just one example.”
Fritz also talked about the upcoming U.S. Open, his Olympic experience, and what he’d change about tennis in Wednesday’s episode of FOS Today. You can listen to the entire interview here.
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