ALCARAZ BACKS AWAY FROM PTPA LAWSUIT

Carlos Alcaraz, currently ranked world number three, has made it clear: he had no idea his words were being used in a class-action lawsuit.

The suit, filed by the Pro­fes­sion­al Ten­nis Play­ers’ Asso­ci­a­tion (PTPA) against ten­nis’ gov­ern­ing bod­ies, came as a com­plete sur­prise to him.

The PTPA, co-found­ed by Novak Djokovic and Vasek Pospisil, filed a law­suit accus­ing the ATP, WTA, ITF, and ITIA of anti-com­pet­i­tive prac­tices and neglect­ing play­er wel­fare. Alcaraz was sur­prised to find that a past com­ment he made about the demand­ing ten­nis sched­ule was includ­ed in the law­suit­’s 163-page doc­u­ment.

“It was sur­pris­ing for me because no one had told me about it,” Alcaraz said at the Mia­mi Open. “I was­n’t aware of it. I hon­est­ly don’t sup­port that let­ter.”

The ATP dis­missed the law­suit as a “dis­trac­tion,” while the WTA called it “regret­table and mis­guid­ed.” Mean­while, Pospisil claims the PTPA has the back­ing of over 300 play­ers.

Aus­tralian play­er Nick Kyr­gios, one of 12 cur­rent and for­mer pros named in the suit, described it as a “spe­cial moment” for play­er rights. As for Alcaraz, he’s made his stance clear: “There are things I agree with, and oth­ers I don’t. But the main thing is, I don’t sup­port what was done.”