While he's as ruthless as they come on or off the court, Novak Djokovic has a lot of compassion for his fellow players.
If you're familiar with tennis, you'll often hear how it's a sport for the privileged. Even today, that rings true, although not as much as it once was. What remains constant is the cost of it, and it's simply an expensive sport to play.
There is a lot of travelling involved and if you really want to become the best you need a good team. That costs money, and the reality is that most players simply can't keep up with all of that. Coming from a rather ordinary background, Djokovic knows really well how expensive the sport can be, and that perspective gives him a lot of compassion.
One of the key reasons why Djokovic created the PTPA was to unite players in a sort of union so they could fight for their rights, regardless if they compete on the ATP or WTA Tour. Djokovic spoke about the majority of players not being able to earn a living from tennis years ago, and the issue is still pertinent today.
He spoke about it on ESPN recently mentioning his own experience with that and calling it a failure of their sport. He also spoke about some things that could be improved, like revenue sharing.
I was in their shoes, I understand the struggle. I understand the difficulties of paying the costs for travel if you don't have the backing of a strong federation, which 90% or even more of the players around the world don't have, & not having the budget to pay for coaches & physiotherapists. Coming from Serbia, I didn't have any of that. Now I have influence, I have power, & I want to fight for better conditions.
We talk so much about how much money the US Open winners make but we are not talking about how many players, both men & women, singles, doubles, all together, professionals live from this sport. It's less than 400 players max for a sport that is super global & then it's one of the most-watched sports on the planet. That's poor. That's a failure for our sport."
0 Comments