Novak Djokovic Says Pickleball Is Making Tennis ‘Endangered’

Tennis star Novak Djokovic is fearful about his beloved sport.

Djokovic, 37, instructed reporters that “tennis is endangered” after his Centre Court docket win at Wimbledon 2024 on Saturday, July 6. “If we don’t do one thing about it, globally or collectively, paddle — pickleball within the States — they’re gonna convert all of the tennis golf equipment into paddle and pickleball,” the athlete instructed reporters after his match, in response to X account @TheTennisLetter.

Earlier within the press convention, Djokovic shared his ideas on the state of tennis as an entire, saying he thinks the  sport wants enhancements to develop its viewers.

“Tennis, on one hand, is in a superb place, however on the identical time, after we take a look at Components 1 for instance and what they’ve executed by way of advertising and marketing, by way of progress of the game — by way of the races world wide and the way common they’re — I believe we have to do a greater job on our respective excursions,” he stated.

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The Serbian athlete famous that “we’re fortunate to be very historic and a really international sport,” including, “I believe there’s an enormous area for progress. We’re fairly fractioned as a sport.”

“There are fairly a little bit of issues for us to collectively take a look at and attempt to enhance it,” he continued. “We have to develop the variety of gamers that dwell from this sport.”

Djokovic additionally defined that pickleball — regardless of tennis being the “king or queen of all racquet sports activities” — is extra “economical” for membership house owners, which persuades them to make selections based mostly on cash.

“You’ll be able to construct three paddle courts on one tennis courtroom,” he stated. “Do the straightforward math. It’s simply rather more financially viable for the proprietor of the membership to have these courts.”

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He added, “Within the grand scheme of issues, we have to tackle all these challenges and points. As a result of they’ve been on the market for some time. I don’t suppose we’ve been addressing it within the correct method.”

On Saturday, Djokovic defeated Alexei Popyrin to maneuver on to Wimbledon’s Spherical of 16, persevering with his quest for an eighth Wimbledon title, which might tie him with Roger Federer for probably the most in historical past.

Djokovic is at the moment the world No. 2 males’s singles participant. He holds a report 24 Grand Slam males’s singles titles, together with a report 10 Australian Open titles.

At age 20 in 2008, he broke the streak of Rafael Nadal and Federer — who had 11 consecutive majors — by securing his first main title on the Australian Open.