Abdullah719
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Didn't realise it had already started. But it has!
Novak Djokovic has earned £82m in his glittering career but stuns fellow pros by claiming they deserve more money during Australian Open meeting
Novak Djokovic stunned officials by asking them to leave the annual player meeting at the Australian Open before issuing a call to fellow pros that they should be demanding more prize money.
Roger Federer, Andy Murray and Rafael Nadal were among those present at a gathering that is compulsory for all male players to attend.
Amid remarkable scenes on Friday, senior figures who run the tour had to vacate the hotel conference room at the insistence of Djokovic, the six-time Melbourne champion.
According to witnesses there was widespread shock as out of the blue, Djokovic made a lengthy speech in which he called for the players to form their own union to try to battle for higher levels of financial reward at all tournaments, including Wimbledon.
Djokovic — who has earned just short of $110million (£81.5million) in prize money and lives in tax-free Monaco — believes that players are still not being paid enough compared to other successful sports stars.
The players had earlier in the evening been given a presentation by the Australian Open in which plans were revealed to almost double the overall purse for the Melbourne tournament from its present Aus$55m to Aus$100m (£57.2m) in the next five or six years.
The events of Friday were said to be the talk of the men’s locker room and player agents as the tournament got under way overnight.
Federer, the best-known player of all, is believed not to be a supporter of Djokovic’s initiative.
At present the ATP Tour is based on a partnership between the players and those tournaments which make up the bulk of the circuit.
The four Grand Slams — the Australian, French, Wimbledon and the US Open — are separate entities, but in recent years they have made hefty prize-money increases.
The meeting is said to have been relatively unexceptional until the surprise intervention of Djokovic, which came close to the end of proceedings.
Craig Tiley, the Australian Open’s tournament director, made his presentation to around 150 male players — for whom this is the one meeting of the year that is mandatory — and then left as scheduled.
After that, there was an address by Chris Kermode, the Englishman who is the executive chairman of the ATP Tour, and he was followed by Ross Hutchins, Britain’s former Davis Cup player who serves as Chief Player Officer.
There was then a question-and-answer session. That had finished when Djokovic walked up from the floor and took to the stage and announced he wished to speak, asking politely for all non-players present to leave.
This included Kermode, his staff and directors of the player board such as former players and coaches Roger Rasheed and Justin Gimelstob. The only ‘outsiders’ left in the room were said to be the interpreters on duty.
The former world No 1 then called on to the stage an Australian lawyer who explained some of the technicalities of setting up a players-only union to represent their interests. ‘People were shocked,’ one player at the meeting said. ‘There may have been a few who knew about this, but most didn’t.’
It is not known whether Murray, who is still in Melbourne while he recovers from hip surgery, was aware of Djokovic’s plans, although they are both members of the ATP player council.
Among those said to support the idea of a body to represent the interests of players, and not tournaments, are the outspoken Frenchman, Gilles Simon, a former top-10 player, and the 20-year-old world No 4 from Germany, Alex Zverev. Not all top players, however, including Federer, are onside.
Any move for the players to flex their muscles will sound alarm bells in the sport’s corridors of power, especially at a time when crowds and prize money are already at record levels.
A potential boycott of Grand Slams was seriously mooted in 2012 and Wimbledon, for example, responded to the threat with a 40 per cent hike in the purse for the 2013 Championships.
Separately, there is known to be a caucus of top male players who, controversially, believe equal prize money for women at some of the sport’s biggest events is holding back their attempts to increase the recompense the men receive.
Although the subject of reversing the trend of the last 10 years of combining many men’s and women’s tournaments is not believed to have been specifically mentioned on Friday, any moves towards that would prove highly inflammatory in a sport where gender politics are never far from the surface.
While tennis players tend to earn less than their equivalents on the golf circuit, to which they are sometimes compared, they may struggle to convince the wider public that they are underpaid.
The ATP Tour has existed in its current player-tournament partnership since 1990, but this would not be the first attempt to set up a body to represent player-only interests.
In 2003, prominent South African player Wayne Ferreira tried to launch an ‘International Men’s Tennis Association’ along similar lines, but it never got off the ground.
The ATP Tour declined to comment and Djokovic could not be reached. He is due to make his tour comeback on Tuesday.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/te...-Djokovic-career-earnings-82m-wants-more.html
Novak Djokovic has earned £82m in his glittering career but stuns fellow pros by claiming they deserve more money during Australian Open meeting
Novak Djokovic stunned officials by asking them to leave the annual player meeting at the Australian Open before issuing a call to fellow pros that they should be demanding more prize money.
Roger Federer, Andy Murray and Rafael Nadal were among those present at a gathering that is compulsory for all male players to attend.
Amid remarkable scenes on Friday, senior figures who run the tour had to vacate the hotel conference room at the insistence of Djokovic, the six-time Melbourne champion.
According to witnesses there was widespread shock as out of the blue, Djokovic made a lengthy speech in which he called for the players to form their own union to try to battle for higher levels of financial reward at all tournaments, including Wimbledon.
Djokovic — who has earned just short of $110million (£81.5million) in prize money and lives in tax-free Monaco — believes that players are still not being paid enough compared to other successful sports stars.
The players had earlier in the evening been given a presentation by the Australian Open in which plans were revealed to almost double the overall purse for the Melbourne tournament from its present Aus$55m to Aus$100m (£57.2m) in the next five or six years.
The events of Friday were said to be the talk of the men’s locker room and player agents as the tournament got under way overnight.
Federer, the best-known player of all, is believed not to be a supporter of Djokovic’s initiative.
At present the ATP Tour is based on a partnership between the players and those tournaments which make up the bulk of the circuit.
The four Grand Slams — the Australian, French, Wimbledon and the US Open — are separate entities, but in recent years they have made hefty prize-money increases.
The meeting is said to have been relatively unexceptional until the surprise intervention of Djokovic, which came close to the end of proceedings.
Craig Tiley, the Australian Open’s tournament director, made his presentation to around 150 male players — for whom this is the one meeting of the year that is mandatory — and then left as scheduled.
After that, there was an address by Chris Kermode, the Englishman who is the executive chairman of the ATP Tour, and he was followed by Ross Hutchins, Britain’s former Davis Cup player who serves as Chief Player Officer.
There was then a question-and-answer session. That had finished when Djokovic walked up from the floor and took to the stage and announced he wished to speak, asking politely for all non-players present to leave.
This included Kermode, his staff and directors of the player board such as former players and coaches Roger Rasheed and Justin Gimelstob. The only ‘outsiders’ left in the room were said to be the interpreters on duty.
The former world No 1 then called on to the stage an Australian lawyer who explained some of the technicalities of setting up a players-only union to represent their interests. ‘People were shocked,’ one player at the meeting said. ‘There may have been a few who knew about this, but most didn’t.’
It is not known whether Murray, who is still in Melbourne while he recovers from hip surgery, was aware of Djokovic’s plans, although they are both members of the ATP player council.
Among those said to support the idea of a body to represent the interests of players, and not tournaments, are the outspoken Frenchman, Gilles Simon, a former top-10 player, and the 20-year-old world No 4 from Germany, Alex Zverev. Not all top players, however, including Federer, are onside.
Any move for the players to flex their muscles will sound alarm bells in the sport’s corridors of power, especially at a time when crowds and prize money are already at record levels.
A potential boycott of Grand Slams was seriously mooted in 2012 and Wimbledon, for example, responded to the threat with a 40 per cent hike in the purse for the 2013 Championships.
Separately, there is known to be a caucus of top male players who, controversially, believe equal prize money for women at some of the sport’s biggest events is holding back their attempts to increase the recompense the men receive.
Although the subject of reversing the trend of the last 10 years of combining many men’s and women’s tournaments is not believed to have been specifically mentioned on Friday, any moves towards that would prove highly inflammatory in a sport where gender politics are never far from the surface.
While tennis players tend to earn less than their equivalents on the golf circuit, to which they are sometimes compared, they may struggle to convince the wider public that they are underpaid.
The ATP Tour has existed in its current player-tournament partnership since 1990, but this would not be the first attempt to set up a body to represent player-only interests.
In 2003, prominent South African player Wayne Ferreira tried to launch an ‘International Men’s Tennis Association’ along similar lines, but it never got off the ground.
The ATP Tour declined to comment and Djokovic could not be reached. He is due to make his tour comeback on Tuesday.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/te...-Djokovic-career-earnings-82m-wants-more.html
