In a Wimbledon press conference, 24-time Grand Slam champion Novak Djokovic admitted that though Tennis remains the queen of racquet sport, it could lose its space to Padel or Pickleball if it fails to reinvent itself.

Tennis to do away with five-setters…

Novak Djokovic: Five-set matches, now-a-days, you can only see them in Grand Slams. That’s what excites both players and the crowd. Most of the people love to see it and we, as players like to play that, maybe, not that often. For example, the five-set match that I can highlight which is one of the most exciting matches that I have played is against Federer here in the final of Wimbledon 2019. It was an incredible match, some match points saved. If that match was best of three, it could be quite different because he was a better player.

So, a five-setter gives you a sense of confidence and tranquility even you are two sets to love down. Of course there is a sense of urgency but you still feel ‘there is quite a lot of time for me to bounce back.’ And throughout my career, I have quite a few matches where I came back from two sets down or one down and won the five setter. I enjoyed those throughout my career and I think they are important aspect of the history and future, as well, of the sport. So I would support it, particularly in the later stages of the Grand Slam.

I have seen quite a lot of debate on whether the best of five will be turned into best of three in Slams. I don’t think so; it should stay best of five. Maybe, it should be good to consider the opening rounds to go with three and then you move on to five sets from fourth round or the quarters. This is my thinking.

Innovation in Tennis is necessary…

Novak Djokovic: We have to figure out how to attract young audience. I think, Tennis, in one hand is in a good place. But, at the same time, when we look at Formula One, for example, what they have done in terms of marketing, in terms of the growth of the sport, what we need is to do a better job on our respective tours. Because the Grand Slams are always going to do good but our tours have to do better.

We are very lucky to be a very historical and very global sport. One of the studies conducted by PTPA there to four years ago showed that Tennis is the fourth most popular sport, most watched sport in the world along with Cricket. But Tennis is number nine or ten in the list of all sports that use its popularity- commercializing or capitalizing on that. So, there is a huge space for growth.

Poor job at the base level….

Novak Djokovic: There’s a lot of things that we should collectively look at and try to improve. We need to grow the number of players that live from this sport. Very rarely, I see in the media that you guys are writing about the fact that there are only three hundred fifty or four hundred players- men, women, singles, doubles- who live from this sport. That’s for me is deeply concerning.

We talk about the Grand Slam winners win this or that- the focus is always on the grand prize. But what about the base level. We are doing a very poor job there. Tennis is a global sport and it’s loved by millions of children who pick up a racquet and want to play. But we don’t make it accessible, we don’t make it so affordable, especially in countries like mine that doesn’t have a strong federation or a Grand Slam or big budget. We have to come together collectively and understand how to maintain this sport’s foundation or create a new foundation.  

Fear of Tennis being overtaken by Padel or Pickleball

Novak Djokovic: Tennis is the king or queen of all the racquet sports but on a club-level, Tennis is endangered. And if we don’t do something about it, globally or collectively, they are going to convert all the Tennis clubs into Padel or Pickleball. Because it’s more economical- you have one Tennis court in which you can built three Padel courts. You do the simple Maths, it’s more financially viable for the owner of the club to have those courts.

We need to address all these in a grand scale. These challenges and issues are out there for a while but we have not been addressing them in that way.