PARIS (Reuters) – World primary Novak Djokovic stated on Wednesday that his breakaway gamers’ group should have been on the negotiating desk when the decision was made to strip Wimbledon of rating factors.
The tennis governing our bodies final week took away rating factors from Wimbledon after organisers of the grasscourt Grand Slam determined to exclude gamers from Russia and Belarus within the wake of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
Djokovic and Canadian Vasek Pospisil stepped down from their positions on the ATP participant council on the eve of the U.S. Open in 2020 and began the Professional Tennis Players Association (PTPA) with the goal of higher defending the pursuits of the gamers.
The transfer was met with staunch opposition from the tennis governing our bodies, however Djokovic stated the PTPA must be an integral part of the tennis group.
“We are nonetheless a younger organisation, and it takes time to arrange construction within the system. But it’s going to most likely take essentially the most time and be difficult for us to actually be accepted as part of the system. Right now we aren’t,” Djokovic instructed reporters when requested what function the PTPA might have performed in negotiations over the rating factors challenge.
“We usually are not within the negotiations desk the place we should be, as a result of we aren’t simply acknowledged by Slams or anyone else.”
Djokovic will lose the two,000 factors he earned by profitable final 12 months’s Wimbledon title and the Serb is amongst many gamers who might be affected and will drop down the rankings because of the decision.
The decision to strip Wimbledon of rating factors has been criticised by many gamers this week, however Djokovic doesn’t count on it to be reversed.
“I simply assume the system has failed gamers so many occasions and that is the explanation why PTPA must exist, as a result of when it comes all the way down to this type of huge selections, lots of the gamers’ voices usually are not heard sufficient,” he stated.
(Reporting by Sudipto Ganguly; modifying by Toby Davis)
