All major professional male tennis competitions are exclusively under control of the ATP. At this moment you can visit 1xbet.com/en – bet online on all tournaments organized by this entity. However, before the 1990s, there were many entities that grouped tennis players from all over the world.
Each one of those organizations worked completely separate from each other. In a more modern context, imagine if Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic never faced each other simply because they competed in completely separated tournaments. That’s how tennis worked before it was unified under the ATP. You can make an online bet on 1xBet on the best tennis competitions from all over the world.
One of these predecessors to the ATP was the National Tennis League. It was an organization that had some of the best players of the 1960s and 1970s.
A Novel Idea
The National Tennis League, also known as the NTL, was not the first tennis organization. However, it was the first entity of its kind to group both male and female players. Don’t forget to go to 1xBet – try live casino betting now before the next ATP or WTA tournament begins.
This organization was born in 1967. Its creator was George MacCall, who was a former captain of the Davis Cup team of the United States. His idea was to attract the best players from the United States. Many names were quite enthusiastic about his idea. As a result, some of the names who signed up to the NTL were:
- Arthur Ashe;
- Rod Laver;
- Billie Jean King;
- and Roy Emerson.
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Conflicts Emerge
The existence of many groups of tennis players inevitably caused conflicts. The organization that ruled worldwide tennis was the International Lawn Tennis Federation, which is the predecessor of the modern ITF. The ILTF as it was also known clashed with these groups due to a variety of reasons. If you want to wager on tournaments organized by the ITF you can visit 1xBet – best live sports betting can be made on plenty of tennis tournaments.
A particular clash occurred in the early 1970s. The NTL outright banned its players from traveling to the Australian Open, despite many of them wanting to do so. Naturally, this led to some names abandoning the league. However, this occurrence was also the catalyst of the unification of tennis that would eventually happen many years later. The best live sports betting are available on 1xBet, where fantastic tennis competitions are also featured.