Novak Djokovic gives 925-word answer to tennis’ injury problems – ‘I was always against it’
Novak Djokovic believes it is time for tennis’ stakeholders to sit down and look at the sport’s formats, rules and calendar and come up with a solution to the increasing injury problems that have hit top players.
Seven-time Grand Slam winner Carlos Alcaraz is one of several high-profile players who is not featuring at Wimbledon this year due to injury, as the Spaniard has not featured since the start of April due to a wrist injury.
As things stand, 19 players were forced to withdraw from the grass-court Grand Slam before their opening matches with British duo Emma Raducanu and Jack Draper joining the lengthy list in the past 48 hours.
Many believe there has been a dramatic increase in injuries suffered by tennis players over the last few years due to the lengthy tennis season with the likes of Alcaraz, Djokovic, Iga Swiatek and Coco Gauff all calling for a shorter calendar.
But so far, those calls have fallen on deaf ears with the powers that be continuing to add more tournaments to the calendar while ATP Masters 1000 events have been extended in recent years.
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Following his first-round win at Wimbledon, a journalist put the following question to Djokovic: “We see more and more young players dealing with injuries. To me it’s related by the fact this sport change a lot in the last 20 years, becomes more extreme defensively, offensively. Do you think there is a realistic solution to this problem, considering we cannot change the nature of the sport? They say they should play less tournaments, but realistically there is financial side.”
The reply was lengthy and meticulous from the 24-time Grand Slam winner.
“Well, look, it’s a good question. Your observation is correct in terms of the injuries. I mean, the stats are showing that,” he started off.
“I think we have to see this from two perspectives. One that is probably overwhelmingly now dominant in our sport, and we are not the only sport, is the commercial side, the commercial value that you are trying to increase by creating longer days, duration tournaments, introducing two tournaments to the already congested calendar.
“I myself am not playing nearly as much as I used to play in the full season. I have the luxury of picking and choosing where I want to play. I don’t get that kind of exposure to this high-intensity calendar and schedule like most of the other players.
“I’ve seen there was a lot of debate on whether the Masters events particularly, because that was a big change, should be supported by the players, are the players satisfied with the new format, like extended days.
“Me, I was always against it. Commercially, as we said, from that perspective, obviously adds value, but adds value for who? Adds value for the tournament owners mostly.
“One thing I was trying to bring to the attention of the players was that they have to understand fully the background of this 30-year deal in order to see how they are not actually benefiting as much as they think they are.
“Additionally, four days of the Masters event does generate much more value for the tournament than for the players.
“I give you few examples: One that was done, every Masters event owner could have, and quite a few of them did, upgrade their facilities, build new stadiums. But these stadiums, they are investments that are also going against the prize money and their negotiations with ATP. They are justifying these investments back to the ATP.
“ATP, or us players and tournaments of the ATP organisation, get the benefit and the profit of the stadium revenue only for the duration of the tournament, which is less than two weeks. What happens the other 50 weeks is everything is going in the pocket of the stadium owner.
“This is just one example.
“There is many other underlying reasons why I am completely against and was always against this 30-year deal. The players got the short end of the stick. They wanted that. They pushed for that. I was at that point president of the council, but I didn’t have enough executive power myself to vote against it. That’s it. Now they have to deal with it.
“I see the likes of Alcaraz and others, they’re complaining about the length of the tournaments and not being home. I understand him. I understand them. I don’t like it, too.
“I think tennis really needs a reset of some kind on a bigger level. I think our tours respectively are not functioning well at all. I mean, there are a lot of things that are happening backstage, meetings, relationships are not going in the right direction.”
Some have suggested that Grand Slams also need to change, but Djokovic believes the Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon and US Open should mostly keep the status quo with his focus mainly on the ATP Tour.
The elder statesman continued: “Grand Slams are the pillars. Grand Slams are always going to be Grand Slams. They’re always going to be the most important tournaments we have in our sport.
“But respectively I think the tours have to look into the formats, rules, calendar. There are a lot of complaints. Latin American players who have a shorter season. Latin American players have been for decades producing some of the best players in the world. They have shorter and shorter seasons on clay, hard court. They have the combination of the two.
“I feel like we are trying to [put a] Band-Aid on everything. Trying to fix something, take this tournament… What we have to do, in my opinion, if we want this sport to really improve and tour experiencing a long sustaining success in the future, in the next decades, and be able to compete with the popularity of all the other global sports, we just have to take all of the interest sides in our sport, all the key players, sit down, let’s see what we can do.”
So will things change?
Djokovic doesn’t have much hope as he added: “I don’t see that happening because what I’ve been hearing and what I’ve been seeing in the last couple of years, there’s a lot more conflict within the governing bodies of our sport than there is unity.
“That’s a long answer to your question. I’m all for innovation and change because we have to retain the culture and history of our sport, which I’ve always respected.
“How do we get a younger audience to like tennis? PTPA did years ago, we did this research and study. The age of the average tennis fan around the world was 61. With all due respect, how do we get younger people to get hooked on tennis? We get them to be interested in tennis for Grand Slams maybe. That’s it.
“They’re not going to sit for four hours and five hours and watch tennis every day like that. It’s not just going to happen. It’s a short attention span. We have to see what the market is about. How do we get to them?
“In my opinion, we have to change the format, the tours, have the tournaments have shorter matches, more dynamic, be able to have something more interesting and shorter length ’cause this is too long. You know what I mean?
“Grand Slams, that’s different. Playing best-of-five and so forth, I have my opinions on that. I think at least on the tours we can play around. We need to. It’s not happening. So let’s see what happens there.”
