ATP President Andrea Gaudenzi recently revealed that his organization had had “positive” discussions with Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, the PIF, with a view to reaching an agreement on the possible organization of a tournament within the kingdom. This announcement had earned him criticism from former glories like John McEnroe or Chris Evert, not very fond of seeing the best players evolve in a country where human rights are regularly flouted.
Asked at a press conference on Saturday, Novak Djokovic was more pragmatic on the subject. “For me, it was only a matter of time before Saudi Arabia entered into negotiations to try to enter the world of tennis,” he admitted. That’s what they’ve done with pretty much every other popular sport, except maybe basketball. You know, we see what’s been happening in football for the past few years and the stars who go there for huge sums of money. There is also Formula 1 and golf. »
“Regarding golf, and I think as an individual sport globally, we’re probably closer to golf in terms of how we view the sport. And I think from that example we can probably learn a lot, both positive and negative, and try to structure a deal, if it’s going in that direction, in a proper way that’s going to protect integrity, the tradition and history of the sport, while being able to develop it in a way that will be appropriate”.
