Novak Djokovic Says Information Leaked as Players Resign From ATP Council

The ATP player council has dealt with major changes, earlier today. The Dutch tennis professional, Robin Haase, coach Daniel Vallverdu and Jamie Murray have resigned from the ATP player council. The vice-president of the player’s council Novak Djokovic reflected upon their decisions in his pre-Wimbledon press conference today.

Yesterday, at the All England Club a seven-hour-long meeting was held amongst the players who are part of the ATP board and he highlighted the inefficient functioning of the ATP board. Novak Djokovic understands the reason behind their resignation and Wimbledon’s top-seed spoke about the turbulence and politics taking place in the ATP board. 

“I think it’s a system and a structure that keeps on failing us,” the Serb elaborated. “I’ve been saying this before. We are all here as volunteers, as guys that are trying to do the role responsibly and also make sure that players are represented, different groups of players are represented.” 

World Number one, Novak Djokovic pointed out the loopholes in the management of the governing body of men’s tennis. “Unfortunately the governing structure is structured in such a way that it does not allow us to make any significant changes at our will,” he said. 

“I’ve experienced that in the past when I was also not part of the council when I was one of the 14 out of 15 players signing the document that had three points that we requested from ATP management and our representatives to consider and follow up on, nothing was done,” Novak Djokovic continued. 

Despite the resignation of his fellow professionals, Novak Djokovic decides to work for the ATP player council. He mentioned about the confidential information of the council getting leaked outside and was unhappy with the same and critics stated that a few of the members in the team were falsely charged for some actions when they never did.

“I have nothing to hide, but it is a major concern because a lot of it is supposed to stay confidential. It’s not supposed to go out. Especially not during the meetings. Obviously, there is someone that has been feeding information from inside. I don’t know who that is. I guess we might never find out. But it is disappointing for a lot of players because they don’t feel comfortable. That was a trigger because of which Robin decided to step down, and many others,” Novak Djokovic added.

A seven-hour-long meeting just before a major clearly shows the incompetency in ATP players council and Novak Djokovic was asked about his future plans regarding his role in the player’s council.  

“It’s quite tiring,” Novak Djokovic said. “I did consider stepping down. My team wants me to step down, obviously. I feel something is telling me from inside that I’m supposed to stay there because I feel that we are part of the big transitional phase in tennis at the moment.”