Paris (AP) – World number one Novak Djokovic has demanded more say for tennis professionals on important issues such as scoring at the tournament in Wimbledon.
“When it comes to such big decisions, many of the players’ voices are not heard enough,” said Djokovic at the French Open in Paris. That’s one of the reasons why he founded the PTPA players’ union in 2020 before the US Open.
The problem is that the PTPA has not yet been officially accepted by the other organizations within the tennis scene. “We are not sitting at the negotiating table where we should be because we have not been recognized by the Grand Slam tournaments and by anyone else,” complained Djokovic. Instead, the Players Council within the two organizations ATP (men) and WTA (women) are the contacts, but due to their structure within ATP and WTA, the interests of the players are not 100 percent.
The question of awarding ranking list points at the classic grass lawn in Wimbledon (June 27th to July 10th) is currently occupying the tennis scene. ATP and WTA decided last Friday not to award any world ranking points at Wimbledon this year. The reason for this is the exclusion of professionals from Russia and Belarus because of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine. As a result, some professionals had indicated that they might want to do without Wimbledon this year.