"I’m a professional athlete": Coco Gauff agrees with one point of lawsuits filed by PTPA, 22 players against ATP, WTA, ITF and ITIA for systemic abuse

America’s Coco Gauff has stated that she will agree with the stance in the lawsuits filed against governing bodies in tennis regarding improving the percentage of the revenue in prize money. Recently, the Professional Tennis Players Association (PTPA) and 22 players have filed a complaint against ATP, WTA, International Tennis Federation (ITF), and International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) on Tuesday on charges of anticompetitive business practices, monopolizing professional tennis, and systemic abuse.

According to the report, the players and the PTPA accused the WTA, ATP, ITF, and ITIA of working together as a ‘cartel’ to reduce competition and fix prize money. The report further stated that the suits have been filed in the United Kingdom (UK), European Union, and United States district courts.

Gauff, who is already regarded as one of the best players currently playing in women’s tennis in the singles category along with the likes of Belarus’ Aryna Sabalenka and Poland’s Iga Swiatek, has been recently quoted in a report by Tennis Majors where she revealed that she also got to know about the lawsuits from news and social media. She stated that one point she can agree on is improving the percentage of revenue in prize money.

“I honestly don’t have a lot of information on that whole thing, to be honest,” she said. “I found out when everyone else did, so I don’t have any information on it that I can share but I’m from all for trying to make the sport better, but I don’t know the details of it. I just saw it on Instagram two days ago. For me, I guess the biggest thing would be more of a percentage of the revenue in prize money. I also can’t sit here and complain. I’m a professional athlete, I get paid pretty well to do what I love. The amount of work isn’t equal to the reward – I’m an athlete, there’s people who deal with much harder things in this world. So yes, if you want to compare it to other sports, then yes, but if you want to compare it to other things in life, I’m not going to sit here and complain. Obviously for the women’s side of things making as many tournaments as we can equal to the men when it comes to prize money. There’s a whole other thing when it comes to visibility and things like that we can also improve on.”