Jannik Sinner refused to rule out participating in a player boycott of the grand slam tournaments and accused the majors of disrespect for the top players due to their lack of response in the ongoing prize money dispute.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s more about respect, you know?\u201d said Sinner, the men\u2019s No 1. \u201cBecause I think we give much more than what we are getting back. It\u2019s not only for the top players; it\u2019s for all of us players. Again, from men\u2019s and women\u2019s side, we are very, very equal. I think the top 10 men, top 10 women, we wrote a letter. It\u2019s not nice that after one year we are not even close to the conclusion of what we would like to have.<\/p>\n
\u201cTalking in other sports, if the top athletes, they send important letters, I truly believe that within 48 hours you have not only a response but you also have a meeting with this kind of thing, so \u2026 Of course, we talk about money. The most important is respect, and we just don\u2019t feel it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sinner\u2019s comments come after Aryna Sabalenka, the women\u2019s No 1, suggested on Tuesday that players would boycott grand slam tournaments in the future due to the prize money dispute, which Coco Gauff expressed agreement with. Last March, the top 10 men\u2019s and women\u2019s players sent a letter to the grand slam tournaments requesting meetings to discuss players receiving a greater share of the revenues, increased contributions to player welfare contributions and more cooperation between the grand slams and players.<\/p>\n
Asked if he would be willing to skip a significant event, Sinner said: \u201cI cannot predict the future in a way,\u201d he said. \u201cBut in the same time I also believe that somewhere we need to start. I understand other players not playing. But yeah, let\u2019s see. Definitely I can see all the press conferences, and I\u2019m definitely not the only one. It\u2019s the first time that I feel like the players are all in the same scenario and in the same point of view.\u201d<\/p>\n
Novak Djokovic, who has devoted a significant amount of his time to attempting to unite players, through his role as president of the ATP Player Council and then by co-founding the Professional Tennis Players\u2019 Association (PTPA), said he has not participated in the latest initiative but he is fully supportive of the players from the sidelines.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve said it many times,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t need to talk about that too long. Players know that they\u2019ll always have my support, and that\u2019s all. The new generations are coming up. I\u2019m glad that there is willingness from the leaders of our sport, like Sabalenka, to really step up and really understand the dynamics of how the tennis politics works and understand the nuances and really what needs to be done not only for her benefit and wellbeing, but for everyone. That\u2019s a true leadership for me and I think she needs to maintain that. I salute that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jannik Sinner refused to rule out participating in a player boycott of the grand slam tournaments and accused…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":629460,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428],"class_list":["post-629459","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\/629459","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=629459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629459\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/629460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=629459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=629459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=629459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}