Novak Djokovic: 'I don't get money to be ATP Players' Council president'
In an interview, Janko Tipsarevic suggested that the Grand Slams should change venues time by time. The Serb thinks the French Open could take place in Rome, for example, and not in Paris all the years.
Novak Djokovic said: "Everything in life is possible, and I have learned that in my experience. But, you know, Grand Slams have historically been "the" biggest tournaments that this sport ever had and still has. They're over 120-plus years old, and we, of course, have to respect the history and tradition and everything. But at the same time, we have to balance it with evolution of sport. You know, ATP obviously is not the governing body of the Grand Slams. They are independent entities, so you have to communicate independently with them and try to figure out ways to, you know, to improve not just the tournament but the overall feeling of players in the tournament. It's not just about financial compensations but facilities and, you know, courts, matches, stuff like this. There is a lot of things involved, and it's a very complex system. I mean, I have been part of it for quite some time, and I have said it openly that I feel this kind of structure that we have, particularly in ATP, is failing us. I really have lost my trust in the structure. I don't think it works well neither for tournaments nor players most of the time, and we have to face it, it's a reality, we have different interests, the tournaments and players. But we are part of the same boat. We are part of the same world, and we respect each other. I respect having tournaments around the world, and they give us an opportunity to play and we have to embrace and work together with them. But I feel like structurally we need to change something because it's hard to reach any kind of consensus when you kind of go head to head. Nine out of ten times, you're going to be -- three board representatives from the player side will be in favour of players, of course, and then the three tournaments will be against it, and then the president is always compromised, I think. It's a very difficult role to be a president of ATP in this structure, I think. I think it's something we have to change because we have to be able to release the pressure and responsibilities of a president who makes big calls every single time. And he kind of has to be in the limbo state, in a way. He's going to satisfy one side, and the other side is obviously going to be very upset. So, yeah, I mean, obviously it's not easy to change right away something like that. Whether it's possible, whether that's future, we don't know. I mean, I leave everything open, you know."
from Tennis World USA http://bit.ly/2UmR08o
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