By: Casey Galvin
On March 18, 2025, the Professional Tennis Players Association (PTPA) and a group of professional tennis athletes initiated a transnational antitrust challenge aimed at dismantling entrenched market power and restructuring the governance of professional tennis. The PTPA and players filed suit against the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP), the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA), the International Tennis Federation (ITF), and the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) in courts of the United States (U.S.), the United Kingdom (U.K.), and the European Union (E.U.). In an update on September 22, 2025, the PTPA expanded the scope of the lawsuit to include the Grand Slams: Tennis Australia (TA), the All England Lawn Tennis Club (AELTC), the French Tennis Federation (FFT), and the United States Tennis Association (USTA).
These three coordinated complaints invoke competition law regimes across jurisdictions. In the U.S., the suit relies on Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act; in the E.U., on Articles 101 and 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU); and in the U.K., on Chapters 1 and 2 of the Competition Act 1998. All of these provisions are designed to prohibit collusive agreements that restrain trade and restrict competition, as well as to curb abuses of market dominance that distort fair economic outcomes.
At its core, the complaint accuses tennis’s governing bodies of operating as a “cartel” that suppresses competition and exploits players to preserve their dominance over professional tennis. It alleges that the defendant organizations coordinate to fix prize money, restrict player sponsorship opportunities, and compromise player welfare by imposing onerous scheduling requirements and forcing competition in unsafe conditions. Central to the allegations is the system of “Ranking Points,” awarded only at sanctioned tournaments, which effectively locks players into the defendant organizations and penalizes participation at rival events. The complaint further argues that players are subjected to invasive disciplinary and anti-doping practices, compelled to sign coercive arbitration agreements, and stripped of certain name, image, and likeness rights—all measures that reinforce the defendants’ monopsony power and suppress athletes’ economic freedom.
This is not the first time that athletes have used antitrust law to challenge the power of sports governing bodies. In 2022, a group of LIV Golf athletes in the U.S. brought an antitrust action against the PGA Tour after being suspended for participating in the rival LIV Golf circuit. The plaintiffs argued that “the PGA Tour had an unlawful monopoly over professional golf and was using its monopoly power to stifle all competition in the market for professional golf.” While the PGA won an early court decision denying an injunction that would have forced it to allow the athletes to compete, the case was ultimately resolved outside the courtroom. In 2023, the suit was dismissed after the PGA and LIV Golf announced a settlement and a framework agreement to merge their commercial operations—a deal that has since collapsed. The court’s initial decision in favor of the PGA aligns with the U.S. judiciary’s historical deference to sports organizations over players, often accepting leagues’ claims that restrictive rules are necessary to preserve the integrity of the sport. This tendency may prove to be a significant obstacle for the PTPA’s case in U.S. courts.
By contrast, recent decisions in the E.U. have shown a greater willingness to scrutinize sports governing bodies under competition law. In 2023, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) struck down rules adopted by the International Skating Union (ISU) that barred athletes from competing in non-sanctioned events and threatened lifetime bans for such participation. The CJEU held that the ISU’s rules were a restriction of competition “by object,” violating Article 101 of the TFEU, and further emphasized that such rules were unlawful because they granted the ISU unchecked power to exclude rivals and deprived athletes of fair market access. Similar reasoning appeared in the CJEU’s ruling in the European Superleague Company case, where FIFA’s and UEFA’s prior-approval and sanctioning rules for rival football competitions were deemed abuses of dominance. In both cases, the CJEU held that rules restricting new entrants to the market through prior-authorization requirements must be exercised in a transparent, objective, non-discriminatory, and proportionate manner. These decisions make clear that, in the E.U., sports governing bodies face growing scrutiny under competition law for their regulatory conduct. For the PTPA’s case in the E.U., this trend could prove especially significant, offering a more receptive legal environment for challenges to entrenched governing powers in sport.
The PTPA lawsuit offers a compelling test of how competition law applies to sports across jurisdictions. In the U.S., courts have historically shown deference to sports organizations when restrictive rules are justified as preserving the integrity of the game—a pattern that may pose challenges for players. In the E.U., by contrast, recent rulings signal a greater willingness to strike down exclusionary practices and demand more transparent, proportionate regulation. The way each court system approaches the PTPA’s claims will be closely watched, and the ultimate outcome remains uncertain. What is clear, however, is that the PTPA’s case could reshape not only the governance of professional tennis but also the broader balance of power between athletes and the organizations that control global sports.
