Tennis
AUSTRALIAN OPEN DELAY VALID IF SMOKE HAZE WORSEN, SAYS DJOKOVIC
Novak Djokovic said Australian Open organisers should consider delaying the first Grand Slam of the year if haze from bushfires raging around the country threatens players’ health.
The opening major of 2020 is due to start at Melbourne Park on January 20 and the city was blanketed by smoke from blazes burning to the east on Saturday, compromising air quality.
Djokovic, president of the ATP players council, said in the early hours of Sunday that any delay would be a last resort, but it needed to be discussed.
“I mean, it’s fair from you to say that (ask the question),” he said when pressed on the matter in Brisbane, where he is playing for Serbia in the inaugural ATP Cup team event.
“Obviously, you have to always… because of some extreme weather and conditions, you just have to consider it.
“But I think that’s probably the very, very last option for anything. I think they’re going to try to do anything to not delay in terms of days and when it starts.
“I mean, and I understand why, but if it comes down to those conditions affecting the health of players, I think we should definitely consider it.”
Catastrophic bushfires have been raging in Australia for weeks, leaving 24 dead and hundreds of properties destroyed.
Tennis officials last week took the unprecedented decision to relocate the Canberra International — an ATP Challenger 125 event and on the women’s ITF World Tennis Tour, which serves as a stepping stone to the full tour.
They said play would not have been possible in the Australian capital which has been choked by smoke, with the tournament now due to start Monday at Bendigo in Victoria state.
Djokovic said he had experienced air quality issues at tournaments in China, but the bushfires had created an unprecedented situation.
The Serbian superstar said he not spoken to Tennis Australia chief Craig Tiley “but people from my team have”.
“They’re obviously tracking the situation every single day as it’s evolving and hopefully calming down with the smoke and fires,” he said.
“I think they will, if it continues the same way and if the quality of air is affected… I think Tennis Australia probably will be forced to, I think, create some rules about it.
“I mean, it’s tough for them because scheduling has to be respected in terms of play and the Australian Open starts at a certain time, so there’s a lot of different things involved.
“But health is a concern for me and for anybody.”
He said the ATP players’ council was due to meet before the Australian Open and the issue would be on the agenda.
In a related development, Australian world number one Ashleigh Barty will donate all of her prize money from the Brisbane International to the bushfire relief fund.
The event offers a pot of 1,434,900 Australian dollars (£763,300).
“There are a lot of bigger things going on in Australia right now that we need to take care of,” Barty said.
Five-time Grand Slam winner Maria Sharapova says she plans to donate an initial A$25,000 and asked men’s world number two Novak Djokovic to match it.
Since September, fires in Australia have killed at least 24 people, with dozens more missing, and there is a widely reported estimate that 480 million animals have died.
More than 1,200 homes have been destroyed and millions of hectares of land scorched.
Barty, 23, is the top seed in the singles at the Brisbane International and will play alongside Dutch partner Kiki Bertens in the doubles.
“It’s been really terrible, it really has. For me, this started two or three months ago,” said Barty, who won her first Grand Slam at last year’s French Open.
“We have to remember, this has been going on for a long time across our whole country.
“The first I saw of it was actually flying home from the Fed Cup final [in November], from Perth back to the east coast of Australia, and we could see some of the smoke and some of the fires from the plane. So that really hit home with me.”
Barty also says she donated A$30,000 (£15,960) to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals at the end of last year.
“Obviously the worst of it is still out there at the moment,” she added.
“Now it’s not just wildlife [that] have lost lives and lost homes, but it’s also affected Australians with their lives and their homes.”
Reigning Wimbledon champion Simona Halep, not known for hitting many aces, has also pledged her support in a novel way – by donating every time she shouts at her Australian coach, Darren Cahill, during a match.
Czech two-time Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova is the latest player to pledge to donate money for every ace hit during the Australian summer.
Australian number two Nick Kyrgios started the initiative when he said he would donate A$200 (£106) for each ace.
Tennis Australia committed a A$100 (£53) donation for every ace served at the ATP Cup in Brisbane, Perth and Sydney.
A total of 426 were hit on the opening two days, meaning A$42,600 (£22,660) has been raised for the Australian Red Cross.
The Professional Tennis Players’ Association (PTPA) has filed a lawsuit against the sport’s governing bodies, accusing them of anti-competitive practices and a disregard for player welfare.
The PTPA, an independent players’ union co-founded by Novak Djokovic in 2019, said on March 18 that after years of good-faith efforts to reform professional tennis, it had been forced to take legal action to end “monopolistic control” of the sport.
In a statement, it said that along with more than a dozen players, the PTPA had filed papers in a New York court against the ATP Tour, the WTA Tour, the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA).
“Tennis is broken,” said Ahmad Nassar, executive director of the PTPA.
“Behind the glamorous veneer that the defendants promote, players are trapped in an unfair system that exploits their talent, suppresses their earnings, and jeopardises their health and safety.
“We have exhausted all options for reform through dialogue, and the governing bodies have left us no choice but to seek accountability through the courts. Fixing these systemic failures isn’t about disrupting tennis, it’s about saving it for the generations of players and fans to come.”
In response, the ATP accused the PTPA of choosing “division and distraction” and having no meaningful role in the sport.
“We strongly reject the premise of the PTPA’s claims, believe the case to be entirely without merit, and will vigorously defend our position,” it said in a statement.
“ATP remains committed to working in the best interests of the game – towards continued growth, financial stability, and the best possible future for players, tournaments, and fans.”
The WTA defended its record of growing women’s tennis, describing the lawsuit as “baseless”.
“Every decision taken at the WTA Board level includes the input of players via their elected Board representatives, and athletes receive substantial financial rewards and other benefits from participation in the WTA,” the organisation said.
The ITF, meanwhile, stressed its goal is to ensure the growth of tennis as a global sport.
“As a not-for-profit organisation and global guardian of the game… we reinvest 90 per cent of our income into the global development of the game, via our 213 member National Associations,” an ITF spokesperson said.
Describing the various governing bodies as a “cartel”, the PTPA, which has also begun legal action in Britain and the EU, accuses them of paying “artificially low compensation to professional tennis players” and imposing a “draconian” ranking system that forces them to compete in certain tournaments.
The lawsuit also calls the schedule unsustainable, says players are made to play in extreme heat and often in the early hours of the morning, that tennis balls chosen by the tournaments are a factor in chronic injuries and that players’ privacy rights are being abused by random drug tests.
Prior to filing the lawsuit, the PTPA said it met with more than 250 players across the tours, including the majority of the men’s and women’s top 20.
“The overwhelmingly positive player feedback was a resounding confirmation – change is needed now, and players are united in their fight for reform,” the statement added.
Serbia’s 24-time Grand Slam champion Djokovic has been a fierce advocate for change to the organisation of tennis, insisting that the revenues generated by the sport are not fairly shared out to players.
“Women and men who are around 200 and lower ranked in the world, they are struggling a lot,” he said in a CBS 60 Minutes interview in 2023.
“They can’t afford a coach, they can’t afford travels, they skip tournaments, many of them leave tennis who are super talented and maybe capable of reaching great heights.”
The ITIA, which manages the sport’s anti-doping and anti-corruption programmes, responded to the lawsuit by saying: “Any credible international sport requires robust anti-doping and anti-corruption programmes, and we are proud of our role in contributing to a clean and fair sport.”
-Reuters
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Jannik Sinner has accepted a three-month ban from tennis after the world No. 1 admitted team mistakes led to him twice testing positive for traces of banned substance clostebol in March 2024.
The February 9 to May 4 suspension means Sinner will be free to play in the French Open, the second grand slam of the season, which begins on May 25 at Roland Garros.
In a statement, Sinner said that the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) accepted that he “had no intent and did not derive any competitive advantage from the two positive tests”.
Australian Open champion Sinner has always said that clostebol entered his system when his physiotherapist used a spray containing it to treat a cut, then provided massage and sports therapy.
“This case had been hanging over me now for nearly a year and the process still had a long time to run with a decision maybe only at the end of the year,” Sinner said.
“I have always accepted that I am responsible for my team and realise Wada’s strict rules are an important protection for the sport I love. On that basis I have accepted Wada’s offer to resolve these proceedings on the basis of a three-month sanction.”
Wada said separately that “Sinner did not intend to cheat” but that he would serve his suspension as he is responsible for the actions of his entourage.
The agreement between Sinner and Wada means that Sinner will be able to play in front of his home fans at the Rome Open which kicks off just after the end of his suspension and is the last big clay court tournament before Roland Garros.
-AFP
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Naomi Osaka has parted ways with coach Wim Fissette after four years together across two stints, the 26-year-old announced late on Friday.
The former world number one won two of her four Grand Slam titles under the guidance of the Belgian, but is currently 75th in the rankings having returned to the tour nine months ago after a lengthy maternity break.
“Four years, two slams and a whole lot of memories,” Osaka wrote in an Instagram post.
“Thanks Wim for being a great coach and an even greater person. Wishing you all the best.”
Of the 16 tournaments Osaka has played this season, she has made the quarter-finals in only two – Doha and ‘s-Hertogenbosch – and the Japanese player has also failed to go past the second round in each of the four Grand Slams
-Reuters
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