Tennis is not prepared to face Roger Federer and Nadal's retirement: Miley
In an interview with La Nacion, Dave Miley, who is one of the candidates to become ITF President, spoke about how he sees the future of the game once Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal retire from the professional tour. Miley said: "I always ask myself when tennis will be prepared for that moment. Who will promote tennis? Who will take their place? It's incredible that they are still playing. I am sure we are not prepared for the absence of Federer and Nadal absence. If I win, in my first eight months there will be people thinking about ideas to promote tennis much more. It's not complicated. One of the problems with tennis is that people's ego is very big. What they are doing now is to fight against each other when we should fight together against other activities. It's difficult to compare team sports like rugby with tennis, but we could learn from other sports. Triathlon, for example, is growing so much. Because there are many attractions around.
"The current directory only thinks about money. It's not just about money in tennis: there is a tradition. The reason why players are trying to fix matches is that they lose a lot of money playing throughout the year. Players need to feel protected so that they can work better. You cannot think that fixing matches will disappear but you have to control more the integrity of the sport. You may need to interrupt the legal betting for a while, I do not know. I asked how much money ITF gets from betting companies to publish data, live results, and they did not reply to me. Players say that they do not see ITF doing something to solve the issue and that's serious. You have to do things so that they do not get threatened."
from Tennis World USA https://ift.tt/2nmVLEh
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