Younger players can take advantage of Federer, Nadal retirement in future'
In an interview to Tennis World USA, the Atlanta Open Tournament Director Eddie Gonzalez spoke about how the men's tennis will look like once Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic will have retired from the professional tour. Gonzalez said: "That's a great question and that's what all the players have been looking to. The next generation is very talented. Opelka has a big serve and big game, he hits powerful balls. There is Stefanos Tsitsipas, Alexander Zverev, Dominic Thiem. They can take advantage of it."
Gonzalez would love to see one of the Big Three competing in Atlanta one day: "It's very close to Wimbledon and being far away from Europe, they do not play. Maybe one time before their careers is over... We are the only men's tournament in the world that features a women's exhibition match between Venus Williams and Madison Keys."
On Felix Auger-Aliassime's withdrawal, Gonzalez just explained the Canadian is tired: "He had a long summer on grass and his body needs a rest."
Asked what the Atlanta Open could improve on, Gonzalez concluded: "Every year there are new things to improve. We have a great venue this year, we are located in a different area so I would like to answer this question once the tournament ends."
On how he became a tournament director, last year speaking to Biz Journals, he concluded: “I knew that once I wasn’t going to make a career winning matches on the tennis court, I wanted to do something still in tennis. I was fortunate for the USTA and the USTA Southern section to take a chance on a young kid and at the time the USTA had never really had anybody doing marketing and sales and promotions. So I was fortunate as so many people in the business world, to be the right person at the right time.”
from Tennis World USA https://ift.tt/32D5Exy
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