Tennis ace Novak Djokovic has carried on with his plans to form a breakaway group from the Association of Tennis Professionals or ATP, which has been the governing body for the sports since over 6 decades.
Titled as the Professional Tennis Players Association or PTPA, the association will represent male players as announced in an email. While tennis legends Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal have criticized the association for disrupting unity between players, former world’s doubles number one Todd Woodbridge has berated the association for not including women players and for completely missing the mark.
It’s just poor judgment at this time,” insisted Australian doubles great Woodbridge in a recent interview.
“Everybody’s losing jobs, millions are out of work, tournaments are struggling to stay up and afloat, and the tour’s been trying for the last six months to get back.
But there’s the biggest downfall of all and that’s … where are the women? If you’re going to do this, tennis is the one sport that’s united in the world with equal prize money. Our majors are played together.
This is tone deaf by the group that has decided to break away. The ATP is the players’ representation.
They’ve got their seat at the table; they want more, they want more control of that.
This is the first week back and they throw this sort of bomb out there? I’m pretty disappointed with the way that they’ve gone with that timing.”
World number two Rafael Nadal also tweeted his concerns and called it a “difficult and complicated” time for the world.
“I personally believe these are times to be calm and all work together in the same direction,” said the Spaniard.
“It is time for unity, not for separation. These are moments where big things can be achieved as long as the world of tennis is united.
Players, tournaments and governing bodies have to work together. We have a bigger problem and separation and disunion is definitely not the solution.”
YouTube Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWZ94jRemmU