Novak Djokovic has issued a lengthy plea to the sport he loves dearly after winning his opening match at Wimbledon.
Djokovic battled with Wu Yibing on Centre Court for three hours and 12 minutes, eventually winning 6-4, 5-7, 6-4, 6-4.
He discussed the win with the media at Wimbledon afterwards, where he was also tasked with offering a solution to the injury problem in tennis, particularly concerning young players.
It was put to Djokovic that tennis has become more extreme, with fewer tournaments not a viable option because of the financial aspect.
The Serbian referenced one of his ATP rivals in an extremely detailed response, with Carlos Alcaraz having criticized the schedule in recent years.
How would you solve the tennis injury crisis?
Novak Djokovic claims he was ‘always against’ big tennis change
Djokovic said in London: “Well, look, it’s a good question. Your observation is correct in terms of the injuries. I mean, the stats are showing that. 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 organization, 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 completely am against and was always against this 30-year deal. The players got the shorter 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’s a lot of things that is happening in the backstage, meetings, relationships are not going in the right direction.
“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’s a lot of complaints. Latin American players that 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 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.
“I don’t see that happening because what I’ve been hearing and what I’ve been seeing in the last couple 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 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 because 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.”
Highlighting the busy schedule, the 2027 ATP calendar will feature nine ATP Masters 1000 tournaments, with seven in the extended 12-day format.
Very significantly, Alcaraz is not playing Wimbledon this year because of injury, and he is joined on the sidelines by the likes of Jack Draper and Holger Rune.
Will Novak Djokovic still be playing to see his tennis wishes come true?
It was a very thorough response from Djokovic, who clearly feels strongly on the matter and wants change sooner rather than later.
How long he remains on the ATP Tour for, however, remains to be seen.
The Serbian veteran turned 39 earlier this year, and is clearly winding down in his career, although there is no sign of retirement in sight.
And that is fantastic for tennis fans and the sport in general, with the legendary figure going to be really missed on and off the court when he finally hangs up his racket.
How would you rate Novak Djokovic’s chances of winning Wimbledon?
It will be intriguing to see if his wishes for the sport come true, but perhaps he will no longer be playing by that stage.
As Djokovic noted, he has featured sparingly so far this season, playing just four tournaments ahead of his latest appearance at Wimbledon.
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