After winning the doubles title at the Pacific Life Open in Indian Wells, South African Wayne Ferreira gave us an update on the status of the independent players' union he is spearheading, the International Men's Tennis Association (IMTA). Ferreira was busier off the court than on it this week, making the rounds in the locker room and attempting to rally players to his cause. He already has one prominent backer, number one Lleyton Hewitt, and others such as Gustavo Kuerten appeared favourable to the proposed union in their comments this week.

Ferriera confimed that the IMTA will "try to have a meeting on Tuesday" in Miami. He was vague about the number of players the IMTA has on board, other than saying, "more than twenty", and is not ready to name names yet. "We're going to try and launch it next week. I've got to try and protect everybody, and I'm not willing to disclose anything until that happens."

Critics of the Ferreira initiative have maintained that there are already sufficient avenues for player input into ATP decisions via the body's Players Council, and that the last thing the already-fragmented sport needs is yet another organization bearing yet another acronym. Ferreira addressed the criticism this way: "I think the people should look at it and say, the players are actually deciding now that they want to be taking a part in it and be more unified, and not be so wishy-washy about things as they always are. We want to know what's going on in the business that we run. We run 50 percent of the business and we want to know what happens inside of it and be a part of it. This is the ATP tour, and we want to work with them, do well with them, improve things. There's nothing negative about what we're trying to do. We're trying to show them that we are taking interest."

Ferreira has also been vague about his precise grievances with the governing body of the men's tour, the ATP, beyond deploring a lack of transparency and under-representation of the players' interests in the ATP's decision-making processes. Clearly, he is not ready to make more specific public demands until he has a solid body of support to back them. But he did deny one rumour, that the players might be after the head of the ATP's CEO, Mark Miles. "No, not at all. We just want to take a look inside and see what's going on. We would like to find out that he's doing a good job. The people are just upset about what's been going on, and they want to know. And if they get the information, and if it's the good and right information, which the ATP say it is, we trust that the whole system will work a lot better. We'll be happy with everybody."

We'll likely know a lot more about the specific concerns that are on the mind of the "rebel" players after the Miami meeting next week.