Novak Djokovic Opens Up On First ATP Player Council Meeting With Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal

Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer, and Rafael Nadal convened the first meeting of the ATP Player Council after the latter two joined the council earlier this month. The ATP Player Council met to tennis politics ahead of the US Open 2019.

There were many speculations regarding how the top three players on the ATP Tour will interact with each other for the betterment of the sport. However, the ATP Player Council President, Novak Djokovic was all positive about their first meeting held in New York.

“The impact is already great,” Djokovic said in an interview after their meeting on Friday.

Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal joined the ATP Player Council along with Jurgen Melzer earlier this month. The trio was voted in for the ATP Player Council subsequently after the resignations of Jamie Murray, Sergiy Stakhovsky and Robin Haase during the Wimbledon Championships 2019.

Novak Djokovic further added, “They are the legends of our sport and two big names joining the council, there has already been a big impact on the rest of the players in the council, the larger group of tennis players in general, knowing that these two guys are willing to contribute to come in, to help out, to support, to participate in discussions and some decision making.”

It is happening for the first time that the top 3 players in the ATP rankings are engaged together at the ATP Player Council. Novak Djokovic revealed that he received only positive reviews from other players after the meeting.

The Serb continued, “It was interesting. It has never happened that you have No. 1, 2 and 3 of the world in a council group that is a group of ten players so all I hear from other players is positive comments about it. It went well, they were very engaged so I’m looking forward to working with them.”

The council last met during the Wimbledon Championships 2019, when the meeting lasted for almost seven hours. The council also saw mass resignations from the members following that meeting, last month. However, the world No.1 suggested that this meeting was considerably shorter.

“It wasn’t actually that long, that’s why it was very surprising, to be honest,’ Djokovic smiled. ‘The last two before last night were six and seven hours and last night was two hours and 15 minutes because it was well prepared prior to the meeting,” Novak Djokovic further added.

“We still didn’t go through a full agenda, of course, that’s what happens, most of the times, but at least it’s good that we are doing work prior to sitting down so that we could have a more efficient meeting,” the 32-year-old concluded.