A power struggle within the Professional Tennis Players Association continued this week, as a new lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois Monday night between executives affiliated with the organization.
The suit provides a counter to versions of events described in a complaint filed in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia in late June, which pit the actions of alleged “fake” and “lawful” PTPA executive committees against one another -- mainly, that one fired the organization’s executive director, Romain Rosenberg, while the other terminated its general counsel, Wajid Mir.
The PTPA (as defined by the defendants in the previous suit, including Rosenberg and the PTPA’s former executive director, Ahmad Nassar) and Winners Alliance (the commercial arm of the PTPA and a defendant in the first complaint) are the plaintiffs of the new complaint. Mir is the defendant.
Mir was hired as the PTPA’s general counsel & SVP/player engagement in late 2022 and, according to the new suit, fired on June 4. The complaint alleges that Mir organized a “coup” to take over the PTPA after being passed over for the executive director role earlier this year, when Nassar stepped down -- “to focus on Winners Alliance,” of which he is CEO -- and Rosenberg was appointed. It also claims that Mir disparaged the PTPA and Winners Alliance, including via “fake social media accounts,” and has been falsely holding himself out as a representative of the PTPA in conversations with tennis players, agents and other officials. As an example of the latter, the suit claims that ATP Chairman Andrea Gaudenzi “recently informed members of the ATP’s tournament council that the ATP was progressing toward a settlement” of the PTPA’s antitrust lawsuit against several tennis governing bodies -- but that “the PTPA has had no recent settlement discussions with the ATP,” implying that Mir “may be communicating, directly or indirectly, with the ATP” about the litigation.
The Illinois complaint offers a high-level look into the PTPA’s finances. It claims that Winners Alliance has funded the PTPA with more than $15M since its founding in 2022 and generated and distributed more than $25M to athletes across professional sports, primarily in tennis (central to the D.C. suit is a contention that Winners Alliance failed to maximize the PTPA’s commercial rights and comply with financial obligations of a term sheet signed between the parties in 2023). The plaintiffs in the Illinois suit also filed Mir’s offer letter from 2022, which set out a $425,000 base salary with the option to purchase up to $100,000 in Winners Alliance stock and the potential for discretionary bonuses.
The new lawsuit demands a jury trial and seeks remedies including a declaration that Mir is not a PTPA representative, a permanent restraint against Mir representing himself as a PTPA representative, and other damages. Eimer Stahl LLP is representing the plaintiffs in the suit.
Mir referred comment to Spiro, Harrison & Nelson, which is representing the plaintiff PTPA in the D.C. lawsuit (but not Mir personally):
“A TRO [temporary restraining order] hearing is already scheduled for July 16 in D.C. Superior Court -- the only forum appropriate to resolve the internal governance of a D.C. non-profit, including the question of who lawfully may lead and guide it. We look forward to having our clients’ lawful governance rights recognized at that hearing.”
