Novak Djokovic speaks on controversial Stakhovsky joining player's council
In the past, Sergiy Stakhovsky has often made misogynistic remarks about female tennis players and women in general. Stakhovsky believes that the men are the ones who push tennis forward. Stakhovsky recently joined the player's council and Novak Djokovic was asked to give an opinion about it. 'You can always focus on the negatives,' the world no. 1 said. 'Sure, there's always a person or two or three that in the past has stated something that is maybe not appropriate. Sergiy has been very involved and contributing a lot to the politics in tennis in a positive way, trying to represent a lot of players, especially that are ranked between 50 and 100. He contributed a lot to the challenger level improvements. So there are a lot of positives about him. Certainly you pointed out the negative. I can't say much about that. But he's one of the 10 players in the council. There's a lot of positives to point out, as well.'
Djokovic was also asked if he is comfortable with Justin Gimelstob continuing in his role as an ATP player representative: 'Look, I am comfortable, as all of the council members, because that's what we decided in our meetings and conference calls that we had in last couple of months on that topic. Obviously, that's an ongoing process and trial. Those are all now allegations in the moment. If he is not proven guilty, he stays innocent, or he's proven guilty, that's a completely different situation for us and we have to address it. Now he's been there and he's been someone that has always fought for the players' rights and represented players in a great way. That's highly respected amongst the players, that's for sure, because he's one of the guys that's been longest on the board, involved in tennis as a tennis player, coach, someone that really has a lot of enthusiasm and energy obviously. I can't say more about his trial because I don't know. I'm not eligible. I'm not in a position to talk about it. I will let authorities deal with that, and we'll see what happens when we hear what's the end line.'
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from Tennis World USA http://bit.ly/2ANPfKg
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