Novak Djokovic: 'Roger Federer playing Madrid makes competition stronger'
Novak Djokovic praised the Madrid Open. The Spanish event was introduced on the ATP Calendar back in 2002 first being played on hard courts and then moved to clay in 2009. This year, Roger Federer makes his comeback for the first time since 2015. In a press conference following his win over Taylor Fritz, the Serb said: "Madrid is one of the most important biggest tournaments we have in sport. With Roger being back on clay and playing this tournament, all the biggest and best players in the world are here. So that makes the competition even stronger. And I look forward to it. I look forward to having, hopefully, a long and successful week."
On Justin Gimelstob leaving the ATP Board, Djokovic added: "I think that, as I said a few days ago in my press conference, Justin made a good move under the circumstances. But I feel like there has been so much speculation that has taken this story to a place which then no-one has control of and then anything that you say about this particular matter can be taken, you know, in a different way. So, from the council's standpoint, you know, we try to understand the ramifications and understand every single detail before going out with any kind of statement. Thankfully, we didn't need to make any kind of moves or decisions because Justin understood the consequences and he stepped down and that's all there is to it. Right now, we have I think ten, 15 candidates for his replacement and actually today was closing deadline for five candidates and they will present in Rome and then we will have a new player board representative for Americas very soon. And we have to move on. The tennis world has to go on and that is how it is. And I think all of us need to be stronger after the whole situation with Justin and everything that was going on in the last four or five months. There's been a lot of pressure on the council and just a lot of people stepping out in the media and just speculating and expressing their opinions without really checking first with us. And that's the part which I personally don't like. I just feel like that is where things get out of hand and that is all there is to it."
from Tennis World USA http://bit.ly/2HacyBF
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