Dubai Tennis: Novak Djokovic advocates for supporting lower-ranked players

Gulf News

World No. 1 wants tennis players at all levels to earn a living from the sport  Read the full story here: https://gulfnews.com/sport/tennis/dubai-tennis-novak-djokovic-calls-for-helping-lower-ranked-players-1.94186752  See more videos at https://gulfnews.com/videos Read more Gulf News stories here: https://bit.ly/2HLJ2km  Subscribe to Gulf News on YouTube and watch more of our videos: https://www.youtube.com/user/GulfNewsTV  #UAEnews #tennis #NovakDjokovic

Transcript

00:00For me, it was the PTPA's existence or, I mean,

00:06most important purpose is to serve players across the board.

00:12And we struggled, unfortunately, in the last few decades

00:16with the division between ITF, ATP.

00:20So ATP only has a reach as much, you know,

00:23and then after that is ITF.

00:25We have thousands and tens of thousands of players

00:27that are competing around the world.

00:29And unfortunately, only 400 to 500 players,

00:35both men and women, singles, doubles, mix,

00:37live from this sport.

00:39So that's something that I feel like

00:42not many people want to talk about.

00:44But I feel like it's super important to always

00:46remind ourselves that we are, you know,

00:49with some statistics, third or fourth most

00:53globally watched sport.

00:551.3 billion people watch it.

00:58Yet, we can't have more than 400 people

01:01living from this sport, both men and women.

01:03So I think we have to put that in our mind

01:07and really think about whether this sport

01:09is doing great or not.

01:11Top of the game, it's doing well, of course.

01:14I can't complain for myself that I'm speaking,

01:17I feel like, on behalf of all the lower rank players,

01:22you know, that struggle to make a living.

01:24So I think this is the main goal of not just,

01:27I mean, PTPA, of course, is a player-only organization,

01:31you know, but I think it should be a goal of everyone.

01:35So I've been trying to call on all the, you know,

01:39governing bodies and organizations in our sport

01:41to get together and collectively figure this out.

01:45Unfortunately, that hasn't happened yet.

01:47Hopefully, it will, because divisions are definitely

01:51not something that PTPA stands for.

01:54We actually want to unite.

01:55We want to, you know, represent more of the voices

01:58of the players that are normally not heard,

02:00that you normally don't get a chance to speak to them

02:03or see them, and those are the majorities.

02:07You know, we are the minority.

02:08We are, whatever, 100, 150 players in the world, you know,

02:12a man's side and a woman's side.

02:14It's 200, 250 players all in all,

02:16but then you have tens of thousands of other players

02:18that are like, hear us out.

02:20And so we've got to do a better job.

02:22We've got to create a better system for them

02:24to make a living, at least break even,

02:26because I think if you're 200 in the world,

02:29you can't travel with a coach.

02:30You have to travel by yourself, you know, 250 max.

02:34So, you know, this is not good enough.

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