Novak Djokovic. Matt King/Getty Photographs
Tennis star Novak Djokovic is fearful about his beloved activity.
Djokovic, 37, told reporters that “tennis is endangered” soon after his Centre Court docket get at Wimbledon 2024 on Saturday, July 6. “If we do not do a little something about it, globally or collectively, paddle — pickleball in the States — they are gonna transform all the tennis clubs into paddle and pickleball,” the athlete told reporters immediately after his match, according to X account @TheTennisLetter.
Previously in the push meeting, Djokovic shared his ideas on the state of tennis as a entire, indicating he thinks the activity demands advancements to mature its audience.
“Tennis, on a person hand, is in a good place, but at the very same time, when we search at Components 1 for illustration and what they’ve completed in phrases of marketing, in conditions of growth of the activity — in terms of the races all-around the globe and how popular they are — I believe we need to have to do a far better occupation on our respective tours,” he said.
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The Serbian athlete mentioned that “we are fortunate to be very historic and a very world activity,” introducing, “I feel there is a big area for advancement. We’re rather fractioned as a sport.”
“There are really a little bit of matters for us to collectively look at and try to increase it,” he continued. “We require to mature the amount of players that stay from this sport.”
Djokovic also spelled out that pickleball — in spite of tennis currently being the “king or queen of all racquet sports” — is additional “economical” for club entrepreneurs, which persuades them to make selections primarily based on revenue.
“You can develop a few paddle courts on a single tennis court,” he explained. “Do the simple math. It is just substantially more financially viable for the proprietor of the club to have all those courts.”
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He added, “In the grand plan of things, we will need to address all these difficulties and challenges. Mainly because they’ve been out there for a while. I never imagine we have been addressing it in the correct way.”
On Saturday, Djokovic defeated Alexei Popyrin to go on to Wimbledon’s Round of 16, continuing his quest for an eighth Wimbledon title, which would tie him with Roger Federer for the most in record.
Djokovic is at present the globe No. 2 men’s singles player. He retains a file 24 Grand Slam men’s singles titles, together with a file 10 Australian Open titles.
At age 20 in 2008, he broke the streak of Rafael Nadal and Federer — who had 11 consecutive majors — by securing his very first key title at the Australian Open.
