{"id":232996,"date":"2025-10-18T03:45:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-18T03:45:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/232996\/"},"modified":"2025-10-18T03:45:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-18T03:45:08","slug":"novak-djokovic-warns-he-is-ready-to-shake-up-tennis-as-he-uses-menacing-words","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/232996\/","title":{"rendered":"Novak Djokovic warns he is ready to shake up tennis as he uses menacing words"},"content":{"rendered":"

Novak Djokovic<\/a> may have sent a shiver down the spine of some tennis chiefs as he made what appeared to be menacing comments suggesting he is ready to shake up the tennis world in the coming years.<\/p>\n

Speaking at the Joy Forum in Saudi Arabia, Djokovic was in a reflective mood as he spoke about his challenging childhood back in Serbia rise to the top of the tennis world.<\/p>\n

It was when he started speaking about the future of tennis and his desire to reshape the sport that he became most animated, as he opened up on the \u2018players union\u2019 he has been involved in setting up.<\/p>\n

The Professional Tennis Players Association (PTPA) has limited impact in a sport that has been reluctant to allow the body to have any major influence, with Djokovic suggesting that could change soon.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn our sport, it is a big monopoly that has been there for decades,\u201d said Djokovic. \u201cThat was the biggest inspiration for me and my college Vasek Pospisil, my fellow tennis player, we founded the Professional Tennis Players Association.<\/p>\n

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\u201cNow we have the PTPA, but we still don\u2019t have the voice at the table where the decision are being made. That\u2019s the downside of our sport and the way it is structured. The system is the way that it is.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m always looking for a place where there is innovation and thankfully with my achievements, I have a platform and a mic in my hand and I can say certain things that will hurt a lot of people and disturb along of chairs. But I don\u2019t care. At the end of the day, I love this sport. This sport has given me everything in my life, so I want to give it back.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat can I do for the players? How can I personally engage in some changes so we can force that, in a right way.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people are going to oppose that, they are not going to like it, but I can sleep well knowing I\u2019m doing something good and my heart is in the right place.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fire just keeps going in me. As long as you live, as long as you breathe, you want to make this world a better place.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, the PTPA started a legal case<\/a> against the ATP, WTA and the International Tennis Federation, as well as the International Tennis Integrity Agency, which oversees the sport\u2019s anti-doping and anti-corruption system.<\/p>\n

Twelve current and former players, including Pospisil and Nick Kyrgios, are listed as plaintiffs along with the PTPA in the US suit in New York.<\/p>\n

The PTPA\u2019s high-profile lawsuit was backed up by a move from 20 players from the men\u2019s and women\u2019s tours sending a letter to the organisers of the Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon and US Open last week demanding a bigger share of the prize pot in tennis.<\/p>\n

These developments have started a debate over what comes next for the game, with players ranked outside of the top 100 in the men\u2019s and women\u2019s tours continuing to struggle to earn a living wage from the sport.<\/p>\n

Leading coach Barry Fulcher, who works with Wimbledon doubles champion Julian Cash, told Tennis365 that he has doubts over the integrity of the PTPA\u2019s claim for more cash, as he suspects it is a push to earn more cash at the highest level of the game.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to create more opportunities for players to genuinely make a profit because when you look at the prize money on offer at these entry-level rankings events, it is difficult to understand the economics,\u201d Fulcher told Tennis365.<\/p>\n

\u201cA player out there travelling the world, trying to pick up ATP\/WTA ranking points early in their careers is just not going to make any sort of money even just to cover their costs.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of our goals with the Progress Tour has been to provide players with more opportunities to compete and come away with a profit at the end of the week \u2013 this week\u2019s Easter Bowl being a prime example of that. We want to show that this is possible, because week on week, players are not able to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Djokovic spoke about the issue of prize money once again ahead of the Monte-Carlo Masters, but his focus this time was on the distribution of funds in Grand Slam tournaments and Fulcher believes that is the priority for the game\u2019s elite players.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s absolutely right for Novak to highlight the fact that, relative to other sports, there are so few players in the world able to earn a living from the sport,\u201d continued Fulcher, who is currently coaching ATP top 20 ranked doubles player Julian Cash.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you take what has been said at face value, Novak is absolutely on the money, but I\u2019m not convinced that that is genuinely what the PTPA is fighting for.<\/p>\n

\u201cUltimately, the players [represented by the PTPA] don\u2019t feel that their slice of the pie is big enough relative to the revenues generated at the top of the game and I don\u2019t disagree with this.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Novak Djokovic may have sent a shiver down the spine of some tennis chiefs as he made what…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":232997,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428],"class_list":["post-232996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232996\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/232997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}