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The Post of ATP Council President is As Important As Tennis to Novak Djokovic

Published 04/19/2019, 4:59 AM EDT

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The World Number one tennis player, Novak Djokovic lifted up his game yesterday on the courts of Monaco than his game during his opening round match at Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters 2019, where he survived an opener against Philipp Kohlschreiber. Today, he played Taylor Fritz and conceded a 6-3, 6-0 win over the American.

Before his second victory on his home-loam of Monte-Carlo, Novak Djokovic expressed his thoughts on the remarks by his friend and compatriot, Janko Tipsarevic where he commented upon Djokovic’s engagement as the ATP council president. Tipsarevic feels that responsibility deviates Novak Djokovic from focusing on his game. 

“I respected him (Tipsarevic) a lot always because he’s very frank, very transparent, honest,” Novak Djokovic said. “He doesn’t hold anything back, and that’s what I think is really nice to see. It’s a virtue in today’s world. His comment concerning my involvement in the tennis politics, from a certain perspective, makes sense, you know, conserving the energy and kind of trying to focus on, in a way, what matters the most for me, you know: obviously family and tennis.”

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Further, Novak Djokovic articulated his notion behind taking up this job. “At the same time, it is the conscious, responsible decision I made to be part of it, partly because I also feel that players want me to be there,” he continued. “I was kind of re-elected to be there and re-elected as the president to run another term”.

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“We all, in the council, don’t get any financial compensation or anything like that. It’s all volunteer, you know, volunteering job. Council has been more active than ever, I mean, in my opinion, in terms of communication. So it does take probably more time, but at the same time, we all feel and understand that this is an important time for tennis, a lot of different changes and a lot of different rule changes and new events”.

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Novak Djokovic continued to speak about the changes which are constantly made on the ATP circuit.“Obviously, the transition tour situation and everything that’s happening are quite serious. It’s affecting a lot of players. That’s one of the most important things to address at the moment and that we are talking about. So look, I’m just one of the ten players. Yes, I’m president of the council, but I’m one of the ten players, and I’m part of 50% of the whole structure. So I can’t make any calls by myself.”

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Up next the Serb will play Daniil Medvedev who knocked out the sixth seed Stefanos Tsitsipas in the pre-quarters of the Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters 2019.

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Written by:

Mahalakshmi Murali

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Mahalakshmi Murali joined EssentiallySports in 2018 as a tennis author and has gone on to pen more than 1800 engaging articles, probing into various aspects of the sport and its illustrious players. With her expertise on the sport, Mahalakshmi has interviewed stalwarts from the sport such as Serena WIlliams’ coach Patrick Mouratoglou and Kevin Anderson’s physio, Carlos Costa. Equipped with her vast experience and a keen understanding of the sport, Mahalakshmi now co-heads the tennis department.
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