MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — Novak Djokovic doesn’t need the antitrust lawsuit filed by the gamers’ affiliation he co-founded to create a rift in tennis, however he additionally mentioned Thursday that the athletes’ share of revenues and their affect each want to extend.
The 24-time Grand Slam champion, talking at a pre-tournament information convention on the Miami Open, defined that he was not listed among the many plaintiffs on the case filed Tuesday in federal court docket in New York — together with actions in Brussels and London — “as a result of I need different gamers to step up.”
The go well with by the Skilled Tennis Gamers’ Affiliation (PTPA) in opposition to the ladies’s and males’s excursions, the Worldwide Tennis Federation and the game’s integrity company mentioned the organizations maintain “full management over the gamers’ pay and dealing situations,” calling them a “cartel.”
“I’ve by no means been a fan and supporter of division in our sport, however I’ve at all times fought for higher illustration and affect of and positioning of the gamers globally in our sport, which I believe remains to be not the place I believe it must be,” Djokovic mentioned, “and the place a lot of the gamers suppose it must be, not simply by way of prize cash, however by way of many different factors which have been additionally acknowledged in that doc.”
The PTPA mentioned it had spoken with greater than 250 gamers — ladies and men — and gotten backing for the class-action go well with. Gamers whose names are hooked up to the U.S. lawsuit embrace 2022 Wimbledon runner-up Nick Kyrgios, Sorana Cirstea, Varvara Gracheva, Reilly Opelka, Tennys Sandgren and Nicole Melichar-Martinez.
However four-time main champion Carlos Alcaraz mentioned Wednesday on the Miami Open that he wasn’t a fan — partly as a result of he wasn’t conscious he’d be quoted within the submitting, hadn’t been instructed it was occurring and didn’t agree with all the things acknowledged by the attorneys.
Djokovic echoed that final sentiment.
“I actually hope that each one the governing our bodies, together with PTPA, will come collectively and remedy these points,” he mentioned. “It is a basic lawsuit, so attorneys to attorneys, kind of scenario. So to be fairly frank with you, there are issues that I agree with within the lawsuit, after which there are additionally issues that I don’t agree with. And I discovered that possibly some wording was fairly sturdy in there, however I assume the authorized group is aware of what they’re doing and what sort of terminology they’re supposed to make use of with a purpose to get the fitting impact.”
