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John Millman - defends ATP Tour
ATP Tennis Players, Tennis News

Australian ace challenges ‘simply untrue’ Steve Johnson ATP Tour accusations


John Millman has hit back at Steve Johnson after the American accused the ATP Tour of not looking after the players’ income.

Since the coronavirus crisis, tournaments have been forced to reduce the prize money pots available to players, largely due to loss of ticket income.

One exception to that might have been Indian Wells. Johnson took to Twitter to claim they were willing to pay full prize money if they were able to reschedule the tournament, only for the ATP board rejected their proposals.

Johnson alleges that was due to politics, claiming ATP Tour board members looked after their own financial interests rather than the players’, but Millman says such claims are ‘simply untrue.’

“Mate, they didn’t get approval initially because they weren’t flexible with when they wanted to have the event,” Millman told Johnson on Twitter.

“Options were given with available weeks. They didn’t want any of them, wanted one specific week.

“Multiple tournaments were going to be disrupted with their spot that they had locked in for years.

“To suggest that they aren’t getting approval because of board members wanting to benefit from prizemoney reductions (due to COVID) is simply untrue.”


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Michael Graham, Tennishead.net Editor, has been a professional sports journalist for his whole career and is especially passionate about tennis. He's been the Editor of Tennishead.net for over 5 years and loves watching live tennis by visiting as many tournaments as possible. Michael specialises in writing in-depth features about the ATP & WTA tours.