2.1 Background to Sports Agents in General and Tennis Agents in Particular

While little has been written to date on the law pertaining to professional tennis agency, there are relatively comprehensive works to be found in the literature on the sport of tennis per se, including its societal context and historical evolutionFootnote ¹ – and in some of these publications one does encounter references to tennis agents in particular, with at least one such work dedicating an entire chapter to the subject.Footnote ² As Ruth eloquently expounds, player agents and sports managers have a long history in the realm of tennis, to the extent that the origins of tennis agency can be traced back to, and are actually intertwined with, those of professional sports agency itself. Indeed, whereas much of the attention in the literature (and certainly in legal scholarship) on sports agency has (perhaps understandably) been devoted to popular team sports (and most frequently to football,Footnote ³ as well as the traditional major league sports in North AmericaFootnote ⁴), it is worth recalling that the very first agencies to provide professional athlete representation services originally concentrated their activities on individual sports, and most notably on tennis, alongside golf.Footnote ⁵ This was true of ‘the earliest, most successful, and most historically significant agency’,Footnote ⁶ namely, the US-based International Management Group (IMG), which at its outset in the 1960s preferred to enrol tennis players and golfers as clients over players of team sports.Footnote ⁷ This was in large part due to financial considerations, as it was cheaper to ferry individual athletes to sporting exhibitions than entire teams, thereby making them more versatile in terms of their earning potential, for they could then also generate income from such events at the same time as bringing revenues from product endorsements (i.e. particularly clothing and equipment).Footnote ⁸ And while IMG’s very first clients were golfers,Footnote ⁹ the company’s expansion coincided with the International Tennis Federation’s (ITF) opening of hitherto exclusively amateur tennis tournaments (including the Grand Slam competitions) to professional tennis playersFootnote ¹⁰ and the signing of its first tennis client in 1968 in the form of the world number 1 at the time, the legendary Australian player Rod Laver. In fact, tennis also lay at the root of the well-documented tussle between IMG and its historically closest and similarly renowned competitor, ProServ, whose first clients were Arthur Ashe and Stan Smith, the top two American players at the time. ProServ was founded in 1970 by Donald Dell, the former US Davis Cup captain (and teammate of Ashe and Smith). Dell had received overtures of allegiance two years earlier from IMG’s founder and fellow lawyer Mark McCormack, who was afraid of the potential competition Dell could bring to bear should he decide to venture into the sports agency business on his own account, given Dell’s more sizeable network in the tennis world.Footnote ¹¹ But when contract talks between IMG and Ashe – arranged by Dell – came to nothing, Dell ultimately did just that, agreeing to represent Ashe himself through his own sports management firm, which would specialise in the representation of tennis players.Footnote ¹² In this way, Dell became what one might term the first tennis agent proper, and the arena of professional sports management firms emerged.

IMG and ProServ would go on to dominate this arena for the rest of the century, amassing between them a broad and star-studded array of clients along the way. Among these were the biggest names in tennis of the era (from Bjorn Borg to Martina Navratilova), as well as superstars of other sports (like Muhammad Ali and Michael Jordan).Footnote ¹³ Furthermore, these agencies extended their representation services to other bodies in tennis (such as the Russian Tennis FederationFootnote ¹⁴), and even to tennis events themselves, including Wimbledon, or more precisely the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club (AELTC).Footnote ¹⁵ And, in turn, this also precipitated an expansion of their areas of representation, beyond merchandising and licensing deals and into sponsorship agreements and broadcasting contracts.Footnote ¹⁶ By the turn of the millennium, IMG (which remained the largest sports management agency, dwarfing even ProServ) had represented hundreds of sportspeople and sporting entities and was grossing over a billion dollars a year, with operations in multiple countries across the globe.Footnote ¹⁷ At the same time, a number of other prominent sports agents and management firms had also entered the scene.Footnote ¹⁸

2.2 Types and Roles of Agents in Professional Tennis

Since the dawn of corporate sports agency in the 1960s, the sector has come to be populated by agents with differing backgrounds; commonly legal, but also financial and commercial.Footnote ¹⁹ Many of these work for large-scale transnational agencies such as IMG or Octagon (a successor to ProServ), which provide a range of services to players, entities and event organisers in a variety of sports, including tennis. However, more recent years have also seen the emergence, alongside these ‘all-inclusive’ agencies, of smaller ‘bespoke’ firms, which are focused specifically on tennis representation and talent management, and ‘built around a stable of select player clients’.Footnote ²⁰ These are often established by players themselves, such as Roger Federer, who left IMG together with his long-lived agent to found the Team 8 Global management firm in 2012.Footnote ²¹ In addition, agency and representations services may also be provided, to one extent or another, by specialised law practices, accountants, financial advisers, investment companies and sports marketing firms, or some combination of them.Footnote ²² Indeed, agents may perform a variety of different roles in professional tennis. When it comes to player agency, as was already alluded to, contract representation constitutes the tennis agent’s core activity, including contracts of endorsement and sponsorshipFootnote ²³ and licensing (e.g. for exhibitions or of image rights), as well as negotiations with coaches and (significantly, in terms of both the potential sporting and legal implications) for entries and appearances at tournaments.Footnote ²⁴ At the same time, player agents may also (or possibly instead) provide tennis players with a range of managerial and administrative services, such as career counselling and advice, handling sporting schedules, travel and accommodation arrangements, or press and social media relations.Footnote ²⁵ Furthermore, tennis agents may also, or alternatively, represent other bodies in the sport, or even play a role in the promotion and management of tournaments, including the solicitation of sales and sponsorship therefor, as well as television rights.Footnote ²⁶ In so doing, the agent’s primary function is to maximise revenues for the client (or ‘principal’), through the deployment of specialist knowledge and expertise, which the principal does not necessarily possess.Footnote ²⁷

As far as the market on which tennis agents operate is concerned, while the sport itself continues to generate ever-larger profits, earning multiple millions from broadcasting rights and ticket sales to one Grand Slam event alone,Footnote ²⁸ the size of the tennis agency sector would appear to remain relatively limited. Admittedly, statistics on sports agency are hard to come by, but, according to one rare study on sports agency that was produced for the European Commission in 2009,Footnote ²⁹ there were an estimated twenty-two official tennis agents active in the European Union across eleven Member States at that time.Footnote ³⁰ This is likely due in part to the tendency for individual players to engage one of the larger management firms,Footnote ³¹ combined with the fact that the higher earning potential is concentrated in the top-ranked tennis players, with a wide financial gap existing between these more dominant players and those ranked outside the top 100.Footnote ³²

3.1 Domestic Rules

Depending on the given jurisdiction, there may exist an assortment of domestic rules of specific application to the work of tennis agents. More precisely, there may be special rules relating to sports in general or tennis in particular that are material to the tennis agent’s vocation, which might derive from contract-based regulations and in some cases could even be laid down in statutory law. Alternatively, in other countries there may be no lex specialis on the matter at all. Furthermore, of those jurisdictions where pertinent sports-related rules do exist, the scope of such rules may be limited to certain aspects of the conduct of agents and provision of agency services in the tennis sector, or could even extend to tennis agency as a lawful occupation.

To depart from the non-specialised end of the regulatory spectrum, there are many countries in which no specific provision has been made for professional tennis agency, either in national law or by means of private regulations of national tennis governing bodies. Take the United Kingdom, for example: not only is there an absence of statutory legislation on the subject there,Footnote ³³ but the regulations of the national governing body in Britain (the Lawn Tennis Association, LTA) are also silent on the matter.Footnote ³⁴ Obviously, this is not to say that the activities of tennis agents on British soil are entirely unregulated. On the contrary, being registered as self-employed workers or as businesses, tennis agents in the United Kingdom are officially recognised in one way or another by government authorities and, as such, must adhere to all attendant laws and statutes.Footnote ³⁵ These will comprise not only applicable labour and/or company laws, but also statutes like the Fraud Act 2006 or the Bribery Act 2010, to name but just two. In addition, as will be further elaborated in the next sub-section, the common law of agency has developed an intricate body of legal authority covering the activities of intermediaries, including those active in the sport of tennis. However, beyond such regulations, legal rules specially applicable to tennis agency – whether of state origin or of a private nature – are essentially non-existent in Britain.Footnote ³⁶ And the same can be said about various other countries one might care to mention, including civil law jurisdictions such as Germany and the Netherlands.Footnote ³⁷ In many of these jurisdictions, one finds statutory regulations on private employment agencies and job placement services that may be of application to the business of sports agents as they are to other forms of agency;Footnote ³⁸ but apart from these laws the activity has not been the object of any particular regulatory attention.

At the other end of the spectrum, there are other (if apparently fewer) countries in which one encounters both national legislation specific to sports agents (i.e. including tennis agents) and relevant regulations adopted by national tennis associations or federations. The prime example in this respect is France, where the sports agent’s profession is primarily regulated in the Code du sport. This special codified statute, created in the 2000s, contains various provisions applicable to sports agents, which lay down strict requirements and standards on sports agency.Footnote ³⁹ Most notable among these is the requirement for individuals to hold an official licence in order to legally carry out sports agency activities in the French jurisdiction.Footnote ⁴⁰ Unlicensed individuals who undertake sports agency activities in France face a possible criminal penalty of two years’ imprisonment along with a fine of at least €30,000,Footnote ⁴¹ and this may also be accompanied by a temporary or even permanent ban on obtaining the licence and carrying on the occupation.Footnote ⁴² At the same time, the issuance of said licence and the precise conditions attached thereto are assigned by the Code du sport to competent national sports federationsFootnote ⁴³ – which in the case of tennis corresponds to the Fédération française de tennis (FFT). For this purpose, the FFT constitutes a Sports Agents Commission within the meaning of the Code du sportFootnote ⁴⁴ and maintains a list of sports agents authorised to exercise the profession in the realm of tennis.Footnote ⁴⁵ In order to obtain the requisite licence from the FFT, the applicant must, among other things, pass an entry examination.Footnote ⁴⁶ This exam consists of two parts, the first of which is designed to assess the candidate’s aptitude to exercise the sports agent’s profession (particularly in terms of their cognisance of relevant social, legal and sporting matters), while the second tests their knowledge of regulations enacted by the FFT, by international federations of which the FFT is a member, by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) and by the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA).Footnote ⁴⁷ Applicants must also meet strict conditions of integrity, which prohibit access to the profession inter alia to persons ‘convicted of acts contrary to honour, probity or rules of morality’Footnote ⁴⁸ or ‘affected by personal bankruptcy or a ban on management’.Footnote ⁴⁹ Additionally, once licensed, FFT agents must comply with several good practice rules, including reporting obligations (such as the duty to regularly communicate activity reports, accounting documentation and contractual agreements to the FFT),Footnote ⁵⁰ as well as conflict-of-interest-related requirements (and particularly the duty to refrain from the so-called double mandat, or dual representation).Footnote ⁵¹ Failure to do so can result in disciplinary sanctions being imposed by the FFT on the licensed agent, including pecuniary fines as well as temporary suspension, if not permanent revocation of their licence.Footnote ⁵² Thus, the applicable sports law in France, as enshrined in the Code du sport and transposed in the FFT’s Règlement des agents sportifs, not only prescribes rigorous requirements for access to the tennis agent’s profession, but also couples these with stringent professional conduct regulations.

France is certainly not alone in having regulations governing the occupation and activities of tennis agents – although other states that have also introduced statutory legislation specifically on sports agency while delegating its promulgation in specie to regulatory authorities for the sport concerned, such as Hungary and Italy,Footnote ⁵³ have adopted a registration-based model.Footnote ⁵⁴ In Italy, for instance, a budgetary law of 2017Footnote ⁵⁵ established the requirement for all sports intermediaries to be registered with the National Olympic Committee (the Comitato Olimpico Nazionale Italiano, CONI) and, in turn, with the relevant national sporting federation, which for tennis is the Federazione Italiana Tennis e Padel (FITP). Contracts entered into by professional sportspeople with unregistered agents would thereafter be deemed null and void.Footnote ⁵⁶ An individual’s registration is subject to successful completion of a habilitation exam intended to determine the candidate’s suitability, especially with regard to knowledge of the sport and attendant law (in the same vein as the French licence exam).Footnote ⁵⁷ To be eligible to take this qualifying test, applicants must be in possession of a secondary school diploma and free from certain criminal convictions (again, along similar lines to the French conditions of integrity).Footnote ⁵⁸ Accordingly, only agents entered in the FITP’s register are permitted to operate as ‘agents of FITP athletes’Footnote ⁵⁹ and those associated tennis players are only allowed to enlist the services of FITP-registered agents.Footnote ⁶⁰ For their part, the FITP regulations stipulate a series of obligations and rules of conduct to which registered tennis agents must adhere, from general principles of honesty, good faith and professional diligenceFootnote ⁶¹ to accounting and fiscal duties,Footnote ⁶² as well as the duty to avoid conflicts of interest with their clients and FITP members in general.Footnote ⁶³ Furthermore, upon registering, the agent is bound to respect CONI’s ‘Code of sporting conduct’.Footnote ⁶⁴ The infringement of any of these requirements may give rise to disciplinary and pecuniary punishments administered by the FITP’s federal tribunal,Footnote ⁶⁵ which can include suspension of the agent from the register.Footnote ⁶⁶ Furthermore, players themselves can be sanctioned for making use of unregistered or suspended agents.Footnote ⁶⁷

As far as the United States is concerned, arguably the situation lies somewhere in the middle of the two extremes just described. In addition to general rules of the law of obligations that are applicable to fiduciary relationships (comparable to those applicable in the United Kingdom under the English common law of agency), there do exist statutory regulations on sports agents’ activities (including in the field of tennis) at state level, which are modelled on the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws’ Uniform Athlete Agents Act (UAAA), adopted in 2000 and last amended in 2019.Footnote ⁶⁸ Yet, while these model rules have been enacted in most States of the Union, they have not been introduced in all fifty and, moreover, they are specifically targeted at sports agents representing student (i.e. amateur) athletes.Footnote ⁶⁹ It is true that the involvement of agents in the collegiate context stretches up to the intersection of amateur with professional sports (i.e. when college athletes complete their university studies and look to turn professional),Footnote ⁷⁰ but the point remains that the UAAA only covers agents who recruit, advise or manage student athletesFootnote ⁷¹ – and this would appear to be reflected in most of the individual state enactments.Footnote ⁷² However, individual states are of course at liberty to adapt the UAAA when implementing it into their own laws, and some have done so. The California athlete agents regulation (now known as the Miller-Ayala Act), for example, is not limited to amateur athletes, but rather applies to sports agents in their dealings with both student athletes and professional athletes.Footnote ⁷³ In addition, the Miller-Ayala Act provides greater substantive requirements and stricter sanctions for infringements as compared to those envisaged in the UAAA, with agents found to have violated the Act being subject to a mandatory revocation of their entitlement to operate in the state for at least one year, not to mention punishment by a fine of up to $50,000 and/or imprisonment of up to one year.Footnote ⁷⁴ Similarly, while the vast majority of states that have implemented the UAAA have adopted the registration system and accompanying integrity standards and duties that are foreseen by the UAAA,Footnote ⁷⁵ not all have opted to impose registration requirements on sports agentsFootnote ⁷⁶ and even those that have may have chosen differing modalities (such as the need to register with a Secretary of State, or a department of professional registration, or a labour commission).Footnote ⁷⁷ Still, these registration systems do converge around the position of the UAAA that, unlike in Italy, the passing of an examination does not form part of the requirements for registration. Instead, certification is based on an individual’s prior training and experience, along with an absence of convictions for crimes involving moral turpitude and the like.Footnote ⁷⁸

In short, then, there exist sharply contrasting regulatory approaches of relevance to the profession and activities of tennis agents, not only between but even within individual countries. For reasons of scope, we have limited ourselves to looking at a few prominent examples, but these alone serve to demonstrate some of the salient differences in this respect. In particular, it has become apparent that jurisdictions diverge in terms of whether to specifically regulate the sports agency business at all; whether to regulate only the conduct of the profession or also access to it; whether to make such access subject to a system of licensing or registration, based on an entry examination or some other criteria; and which sanctions to impose in the event of non-compliance. These kinds of disagreements are certainly not confined to the sport of tennis, but clearly they do impinge upon it as in other sports.Footnote ⁷⁹

3.2 Transnational Rules

Before turning our attention to the contracts that agents enter into with professional tennis players, the place of the regulations of international governing bodies in the regulatory panorama of tennis agency should also be acknowledged. Indeed, there are some rules of significance to tennis agents contained in the ITF Code of Conduct, the ATP Rulebook and the WTA Rulebook. Admittedly, these are not so extensiveFootnote ⁸⁰ and for the most part are applicable to agents insofar as they fall under the broader category of ‘related persons’ to players (i.e. along with coaches, physicians, family members, etc.), rather than dealing distinctly with their particular activities.Footnote ⁸¹ Nevertheless, these regulations do provide some standards of behaviour with which player agents (among others) are bound to agree and to comply in providing their services during the tournaments concerned. In particular, as persons assisting players in their participation in tennis tournaments, agents are under an obligation to refrain from engaging in aggravated or abusive behaviour or other conduct that is contrary to the integrity of the game of tennis.Footnote ⁸² Infractions of these rules can lead to an agent being stripped of their tournament accreditation and denied access to any tournament governed by the given association, potentially even permanently.Footnote ⁸³ Being established by private regulatory authorities, these rules are grounded not in state laws but in contracts, meaning their enforcement is also necessarily contractual. On the other hand, because the rules laid down by the ITF, ATP and WTA – to which players and national tennis federations also agree to adhere – are inherently transnational, unlike domestic legislation they are not territorially limited (or at least not in and of themselves), and are therefore applicable to the actions of tennis agents across different jurisdictions.Footnote ⁸⁴

4.1 The Law on Player–Agent Contracts

In general terms, unlike the law on tennis agency as a profession, there are greater similarities in the regulatory approaches taken to tennis agency contracts across distinct jurisdictions. While the specific rules applicable to player–agent contracts and sources thereof may well differ, a broad concordance can be identified in the substance of the laws governing such contracts, and particularly in terms of the standards to which agents are under a duty to adhere in their contractual dealings with players. In fact, it was already seen that where there exist sports laws governing the activities of tennis agents, such laws impose duties of good faith and conflict-of-interest-related obligations on them, including in their contractual relations with players. And the same is true of the general rules of private law that are applied to player–agent contracts in different countries.

In the case of civil law jurisdictions, the overarching, mandatory principle of good faith under general contract law (which is often enshrined in the national civil codeFootnote ⁸⁵) governs the negotiation, formation, construction, interpretation and execution of contracts, including contracts of agency, and being a ‘super-provision’ this obviously has wide-ranging applications and far-reaching implications in and of itself. There may also be special rules of civilian contract law applicable to agency contracts, however. In Germany, for example, the civil code also contains a number of provisions covering brokerage contracts, such as rules on brokerage fees.Footnote ⁸⁶ Similarly, the French civil code comprises a separate title on ‘mandates’ whereby a party confers upon an authorised representative the power to act in their name.Footnote ⁸⁷ This prescribes certain obligations for the representative (not to mention the mandator), like the obligation for the agent to report to the mandator on their management of the mandate.Footnote ⁸⁸ As for common law countries, there exist comparable obligations – which include an expansive utmost good faith obligation – under predominantly precedential rules of agency and fiduciary relationships.Footnote ⁸⁹ Indeed, while the requirement to act in good faith is not a typical feature of the common law of contract in general, it famously is of the law on fiduciary relations in particular. Thus, as already alluded to, both the English and American legal systems recognise a common law doctrine of agency controlling the principal–agent relationship, by virtue of its fiduciary nature as one where an agent is given authority to act on behalf of a principal in their dealings with third parties.Footnote ⁹⁰ The fiduciary duty of good faith requires the agent to act in accordance with general private law obligations of loyalty, honesty and openness, which fundamentally entail that fiduciaries must pursue their beneficiary’s interest and place it above their own.Footnote ⁹¹ In the words of Lord Justice Jacob in the English case of Imageview Management Ltd v. Jack (which involved a football intermediary):

More particularly, it follows from these long-standing and well-established standards of fidelity that the sports agent is duty-bound to disclose to their athlete-client any real possibility of a conflict of interest that may arise in the agent’s performance of his representative role, and to obtain the client’s consent to said conflict before proceeding.Footnote ⁹³ While this does not go as far as the outright ban on dual representation provided under the French sports law code,Footnote ⁹⁴ it does mean that as a matter of principle the common law ‘denies the right of an agent to assume any relationship that is antagonistic to his duty to his principal’.Footnote ⁹⁵

4.2 Legal Issues Arising from Player–Agent Relations in Professional Tennis

Following directly on from the previous point, one of the most notable legal issues that can arise from player–agent relations is that of conflicts of interest on the part of agents; a potential issue that is all but inherent in the multitude of services that player agents provideFootnote ⁹⁶ and one that has only grown in magnitude since the advent of large-scale sports agencies.Footnote ⁹⁷ As regards specifically professional tennis, such conflicts can arise not only due to the fact that (especially larger) agencies usually represent a plurality of players, whereby serving the interests of one player may come at the expense of another,Footnote ⁹⁸ but also because (as already mentioned) tennis agents have also expanded their operations into the management of tournaments, which can give rise to legal questions if they wish for players they represent to appear in the tournaments they promote.Footnote ⁹⁹ Both of these scenarios arose in the case of Lendl v. ProServ Inc.,Footnote ¹⁰⁰ for instance, which concerned an action brought by Ivan Lendl against ProServ, his erstwhile representative agency, on the ground of breach of fiduciary duty. Lendl argued that ProServ had engaged in practices amounting to a conflict of interest in two respects: first, by signing him up to merchandising agreements and sporting events together with other tennis player clients as a way of securing more income for those clients, but on less advantageous conditions for himself; and second, by having him participate in events managed by ProServ for fees that were lower than the market rate he could command, in order to acquire greater profits for themselves.Footnote ¹⁰¹ While the case was ultimately settled out of court, it provided an early example of the contractual disputes between players and agents that can ensue under the common law of agency. Furthermore, the added role of player agents in the promotion of tennis tournaments might also give rise to issues under competition law. Since tennis agents (and again particularly all-inclusive agencies) can effectively attain monopoly power in their representation of top players, this may result in a spill-over monopolisation of their management of tournaments, to the illegal exclusion of actual and potential competing tournaments.Footnote ¹⁰² As Hainline puts it, ‘[w]ith this power, the player agents can determine the success of any tournament by deciding what top ten players will participate in a given event. If the players follow their agent’s advice, the agent’s event is likely to succeed at the expense of his competitors.’Footnote ¹⁰³ It was in light of these concerns that the now-disbanded Men’s International Professional Tennis Council (MIPTC) actually adopted a ‘conflicts of interest rule’ prohibiting player representatives from simultaneously promoting and managing professional tournaments.Footnote ¹⁰⁴ This itself led to an asserted violation of competition law in the United States, however, in the case of Volvo v. MIPTC.Footnote ¹⁰⁵ In that case (which was also ultimately settled), IMG and ProServ (both of which were frequently involved in the management of tournaments) joined Volvo, a sponsor-client of ProServ, in challenging the MIPTC’s rule on the basis that it infringed the Sherman Antitrust ActFootnote ¹⁰⁶ – while the MIPTC counterclaim alleged anti-trust violations based on the agents’ dual roles.Footnote ¹⁰⁷

Another important (and related) legal issue that was raised in that case – and that also concerns agents in their dealings with players – is that of restraint of trade. This common law doctrine rather concerns contractual restrictions on freedom to conduct business, and assesses the extent to which such restrictions are enforceable according to a reasonableness standard and with regard to public policy and the interests of the parties.Footnote ¹⁰⁸ The most well-known tennis-specific case illustrating the issue of restraints in agency agreements is that of Zverev v. Ace Group International Ltd,Footnote ¹⁰⁹ which involved a dispute between Alexander Zverev and his former sports agency Ace. In that case, Ace claimed a breach of contract on the part of Zverev (as well as his parent guarantors), since he had purported to end his relation with Ace notwithstanding the fact that the term of the representation agreement he had entered into with the agency at the age of 15 was not due to expire for another nine years. Zverev then sought a declaration before the UK High Court that the contract was unfair and oppressive. More precisely, Zverev contended that the lengthy duration of the contract, given its exclusive character, amounted to an unlawful restraint of trade that was not justified as reasonable, and was therefore unenforceable. And while the parties again eventually settled, the nature of the settlement firmly in Zverez’s favour suggests that the High Court would have agreed with Zverez’s contentions.Footnote ¹¹⁰ What is particularly remarkable about this outcome is that Zverev did not even claim to have sustained any financial disadvantage by reason of his protracted contract with Ace, which is the traditional line of argumentation in actions founded on the restraint of trade doctrine. Instead, it was the interest in having an agency relationship based on continued trust and confidence that motivated Zverev’s claim, bearing in mind the particular importance of tournament prizes and image rights in professional tennis.Footnote ¹¹¹ This case could therefore have significant ramifications for player–agent agreements and the ability of players to make alternative representational choices. Conversely, for agents this could entail a further limitation on the degree of contractual autonomy that they enjoy and the freedom to shape their relations with players as they desire.