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ATP to Make Tennis More Appealing

Although tennis has many fans and followers around the world, major tennis events do not really capture the same enthusiasm and interest of other sporting events, such as the soccer World Cup. The ATP has decided to change some of the settings for the 2007 men`s tour in order to increase tennis` appeal. "We see the light," said third-ranked Ivan Ljubicic, chosen Sunday as president of the ATP Player Council. "It`s been a while since things like this happened."

Some of the new steps include opening events at Sundays instead of Mondays, and lowering the number of matches that are carried out in a best-of-five manner. The goal is to create a more attractive game that will keep the audience on their edge and will be interesting and fun to follow.

Another approach was to raise the prize money offered for tournament winners. People are always more interested when money is involved, and especially if a lot of money is involved. The biggest change comes in the department of marketing. If the ATP spent $800,000 on marketing in 2006, the new budget for 2007 stands on $5 million.