U.S. OPEN

August 22, 1996

Les Snyder

LES SNYDER: My name is Les Snyder, and I would like to announce to you here that the United States Tennis Association has decided to remake the U.S. Open men's draw. This decision was made in consultation with the players and various associations including the International Tennis Federation acknowledged (inaudible) the knowledgeable promoters and USTA members. For review, the first part of the draw, minus the seeds, was completed here at the National Tennis Center on Tuesday evening. The draw was completed when the seeds were drawn at a public meeting in midtown Manhattan on Wednesday morning. The order of seeds was not made public as we had received information that one and perhaps two players may not be planning to play in the tournament. Therefore, we did not release the seeds in the evening that the first part of the draw was held. Early Wednesday morning the seeding committee met to collate information and to make final decisions regarding the order of the seeds. We received input, following that, that some individuals thought that the procedures may have been technically incorrect. That is, to be above reproach, the seeds had to be named before the draw to avoid negative perception. I wanted to say publicly that the Tournament Referee and the Tournament Director have my full support. But in order to eliminate any and all questions respect to the draw, the Tournament Committee decided to publicly redraw the entire men's draw. There will be no change in the seedings, nor in the order of the announced seedings. I would now ask Brian Earley if he would conduct the draw and this will be the entire draw. I turn it over to Brian Earley.

(DRAW REDONE)

LES SNYDER: It was thought that if the Tournament Committee knew what the draw was before announcing the order of seeds they may have - may have - been influenced to place people at a place that they thought was most advantageous for the tournament and not the integrity of the tournament. The integrity of the tournament is the most important.

LES SNYDER: Marquis matchups, trying to set up particular marquis matches, playing favoritism within your own federation or something like that.

LES SNYDER: I'd say that we are responding mostly to the players, but we have been working cooperatively with the ATP and they have had some concerns expressed to them.

LES SNYDER: I don't feel it is fair to say who they were because I don't want to spotlight them and put them on the spot and it was us that had to listen to the information and then had to respond and felt that they should be the people that are the focal point at this time.

LES SNYDER: Well, I am sure that all of us wish that it had not occurred. I hope that we are getting across a very strong message by having this redraw. The main idea is that we must do what we believe is best for the sport of tennis and we must do what is best for the U.S. Open and we want it to be above any possible fault (sic), so again, I wish it hadn't happened, but I know there are lot of people surrounding me here that wish it hadn't happened too.

LES SNYDER: That expression was never used in any of my direct contacts with the players at all or anybody else. They were asking for me to be responsive and that is what we have tried to be.

LES SNYDER: Some people have raised that, but that is a separate issue from what we are doing right here. That question was raised, but what we did is absolutely within the rules and we have had a lot of confirmation from players saying that they very much respect us having the courage to do what we did.

LES SNYDER: Well, to be honest with you, I have been so busy -- there is no doubt that we have learned and we will be taking things into account, for sure, as we go forward.

LES SNYDER: That is a good observation and the waiting was because of things that would be very integral to the main draw. If it had been somebody that was a very central person we might have taken a different look and we needed to confirm whether that person was injured or not.

LES SNYDER: Not to me directly, but I heard that there were people that said they had some misgivings -- some players who said they had some misgivings to us; plus these weren't all focused on this particular procedure. They were focused, at least in two cases, on another type of issue.

LES SNYDER: That is very difficult to respond to because some people came to us saying that they were speaking for collectives, and in some cases they would say they were speaking for people, but it didn't always stand up that they really were. I think it is just -- I just like better responding to that once we thought it through; once we believed that it was a significant perception problem; that we thought the right thing was to act as we are doing.

LES SNYDER: I don't think that -- I don't think that I really should respond to that question if you don't mind.

LES SNYDER: Absolutely not brought up. As a matter of fact, I have only had other people alert the television station.

LES SNYDER: Not at all. Absolutely not brought up. As a matter of fact, I have only had other people alert television stations, television networks, as to what was taking place. I have not had any correspondence with them. On that, I would just like to acknowledge the work of Paul Settles who is here helping us today. He is the ATP Player Services Rep and he was helpful to us in doing this draw today and I want to thank you for that.

LES SNYDER: No, there were some Americans and -- there were there were both.

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