Novak Djokovic has locker-room support as disgruntled tennis players demand more slice of the grand slam pie.
President of the ATP Tour player council, Djokovic is pushing for a higher percentage of the financial windfalls generated at the sport’s four biggest annual events.
While Tennis Australia has so far opted not to comment, players currently receive a reported seven per cent of the cash cows that have become the Australian, French and US Opens and Wimbledon, which are run by the International Tennis Federation and the national bodies of each host country — not the ATP.
Djokovic stunned officials, including Australian Open director Craig Tiley, by asking all-non players to leave the room during the annual players’ meeting in Melbourne last week, before urging players to form their own union to push for more money.
The 12-time grand slam champion’s rally cry comes despite Tiley’s pledge to increase Australian Open prize money from $55 million to $100 million over the next five years.
Djokovic’s Serbian teammate and good friend Victor Troicki says it’s “just ridiculous” how small a percentage players receive from grand slam revenue.
Asked ahead of his looming second-round Open clash with Australian Nick Kyrgios if he had an opinion on the matter, Troicki said: “I do. I do.
“I have an opinion but I think what happens inside the union with the players should stay inside, and we’ll see”.
Troicki wasn’t able to attend last Friday’s players’ meeting because he was contesting the Sydney International.
“But I was informed about it, knew about it even before because I talk to Novak a lot about it,” he said.
“If you look at the percentages, what we get from all the income from the grand slams, I think it’s just ridiculous.
“Even though they say they’re raising the money all the time — they are — but they’re earning much more than they did (in the) last (few) years and that’s a bit of a problem, I think”.
The issue is sure to cause division, with defending Australian Open champion Roger Federer — the sport’s biggest star — said to be in favour of the status quo, comfortable players are receiving enough.
Djokovic is due to launch his bid for a record seventh men’s Open title later on Tuesday against American Donald Young.
Johnno
Guest
I support this, Golf has a better system the mid range players do far better. Fed is comfy, as he is so rich. Rafa of all people pushes hard for players rights and has had digs at his good friend Fed for being status quo...
Nick
Guest
What Djokovic should also understand is that if you raise the prizemoney the event is then out of reach of the average fan. At least when he plays in an almost empty stadium he wont have to worry about noise. We used to go to the Australian Open every year. Prices then went up and we had the choice of spending our holidays at the tennis for a few days or have a couple of weeks elsewhere. We chose elsewhere. Actually once Federer retires the tennis will no longer be of interest to me.
BA Sports
Guest
Those four events provide significant funding to the sport and to the tour which they personally benefit from by way of prize money etc. How about players get fined for withdrawing from tournaments in the week before, or withdrawing during the tournaments because of a "stomach bug" - just so they can save their energy for the big money tournament the following week. Djokovic should be paying Federer and Nadal a piece of his prize money every week. They are the two that carried interest in the Men's game for years which kept sponsors willing to invest prize money.