Tennis - Wimbledon 2024 - Novak Djokovic : "With padel and pickleball, tennis is in danger"
Qualifié pour les huitièmes de finale à Wimbledon, Novak Djokovic a déploré l'arrivée du padel pour les clubs de tennis. Le Serbe a également, lors de cette conférence de presse, critiqué le système professionnel du tennis, qui ne permet qu'à 350 sportifs de vivre du sport...
Video : @Wimbledon
Video : @Wimbledon
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00:00Novak, I don't know if I've ever seen a penalty shootout celebrated on a tennis court like that.
00:09How aware were you of what was going on in the match and do you think it's strange that
00:15people technically can't watch the football at Wimbledon? It's not on the TV anywhere.
00:22Well, as I said on the court, I think you could feel, kind of sense the energy of the stadium
00:30that everyone was wondering what the result is and I was expecting it to come, you know,
00:37if England was to score or to win, a huge eruption of the positive emotions and cheering
00:47will come from the stadium, which happened. So I assumed that England won at that point
00:53and then, yeah, you know, we kind of popped in and I did a little
01:00fun mocking of shooting a penalty and then he kind of reached for it. So it was a fun moment
01:08and I think then we could actually focus on, along with the crowd, on the tennis match but
01:13it was a big match obviously and it happened in the middle of our match when it started
01:24and then once the roof was closed obviously the atmosphere became even more
01:29loud and electric as it always is. And as for your second question regarding the
01:36airing of football on the TV, I'm surprised as well. I don't know if it was aired or not but I
01:44was hearing somebody all the way up in one of the press commentary booths, there was
01:52quite a bit of noise. I guess that person was following closely what was happening in the
01:58penalty shootout. So I guess when England was scoring then he shouted and then the whole
02:04section of the stadium kind of laughed and so it was going kind of for a few minutes but then
02:10obviously when they won it was a big eruption. So yeah, good for them.
02:16Sure, Novak, you haven't had the situation in this tournament yet but
02:21what do you make of five set matches and the keys to thriving in them and the importance to the game?
02:30Well, I mean five set matches is nowadays you can only see them in Grand Slams, right? So that's
02:37what I guess excites both players and the crowd. Most of the people love to see it.
02:47We as players like to play it, maybe not that often but you know I think at times to see an
02:52exciting five set match like for example the one that I can highlight was one of the most
02:59exciting matches I've ever played in my life, the five setter against Feather here in the finals of
03:04Wimbledon 2019. That was I think the first year they introduced a 12-all tiebreak
03:14and we used it right away the first year in the finals. So it was an
03:20incredible match with some match points saved and if that match was best of three
03:28yes I was two sets to one up but I think it would be quite different because he was a better player
03:33so I kind of you know when you know that you have even if you're two sets to love or one down like
03:39Rooney was here today was my next opponent he was two sets to love down he still is not out you know
03:44he can still win and I think if you're physically fitter I guess than your opponent or have an
03:54more experience than your opponent in best of five it still gives you a sense of
04:02confidence and tranquility even though you're two sets to love down. Of course there is a sense of
04:07urgency but you know you still feel like okay that you know there's still quite a lot of time
04:14for me to kind of bounce back and throughout my career I've had quite a few matches where I was
04:22coming back from two sets to love or two sets to one down and you know winning record mostly
04:29positive score in a fifth setter so you know I enjoyed those throughout my career and I think
04:36they're important aspect of the history and of the future as well of the sport. So I would support
04:47it particularly in the latter stages of the Grand Slam. I've seen there's been a quite a lot of
04:53debate on that and you guys have been asking a lot of players what they think whether the best
04:58of five should be turned into best of three and slams. I don't think so I think they should stay
05:03best of five. The only thing that I'm maybe thinking it could be good to consider is the
05:11opening rounds that could go best of three and then you move into the hybrid of best of fives
05:17from the fourth round of quarters. I don't know that's just me my thinking but I think best of
05:23five particularly in the last three four rounds of a slam you need to keep. But in terms of
05:30innovation in tennis in our sport I think it's necessary. I think we have to other than slams
05:37we have to figure out how to attract younger audience. I think tennis from one hand is in a
05:45good place but at the same time when we look at Formula One for example and what they have done
05:53in terms of marketing in terms of growth of the sport in terms of the races around the world and
05:59how popular they are I think we need to do a better job on our respective tours
06:06because the Grand Slams are always going to do well but I think our tours need to do better.
06:11We are lucky to be a very historic and very global sport but I think one of the studies
06:21that was done by PTPA three four years ago showed that tennis is
06:30the third or fourth most popular sport in the world most watched sport in the world
06:37along with cricket. Number one is obviously football or soccer as you call it in states
06:44and second one is basketball and then it's tennis and cricket. But tennis is number nine or ten
06:55on the list of all sports in terms of using its popularity
07:01commercializing or capitalizing on that. So I think there is a huge space for growth
07:10that we are quite fractioned I think as a sport so there's quite a bit of
07:17things I think for us to really collectively look at and try to improve it and we need to grow
07:27the number of players that live from this sport. We still very rarely do I see in the media that
07:33you guys are writing about the fact that you have only 350 or 400 players both men women
07:40singles doubles across the border live from this sport on this planet and that's for me
07:47deeply concerning because yes we talk about the Grand Slam winner wins this or that but then it's
07:54it's you know it's always the focus on the grand prize but what about
08:00what about the base level I think we're still doing a very poor job there very poor job because
08:06tennis is a very global sport and it's loved by millions of children that pick up a racket and
08:13want to play but we don't make it accessible we don't make it so affordable you know especially
08:20in the countries like mine that doesn't have a strong federation that has Grand Slam or you know
08:27history or big budgets so I think collectively you know we all have to come together and
08:33understand how to maintain the sports let's say foundation or create a new foundation a cornerstone
08:43of really what tennis is about which is the base level right the club level and now we have the
08:51puddle or puddle as you call it in states that is growing and emerging and people kind of have fun
09:02with it and say yeah but you know tennis is tennis tennis is a king or queen of all the racket sports
09:07that's true but on a club level tennis is endangered and if we don't do something about it
09:15as I said globally or collectively you know puddle pick a ball in states they're going to convert all
09:22the tennis all the tennis clubs into puddle and pickable you know and because it's just
09:27more economical you know you have one tennis court you can build three paddle courts on one tennis
09:32court you do the simple math it's just much more financially viable for an owner of the club to
09:39to have those courts so those are just some of the things that I wanted to share but in a grand
09:45scheme of things I feel like you know we need to we need to address all you know all of this
09:52I feel like challenges and issues for us really because they have been
09:55out there for a while but I don't think we have been addressing them in a proper way
10:00Thank you, I will move on to questions in Serbian
10:03We can do, I answered a very long one, we can do one or two, that was more than you asked for
10:11Alright, congrats on the win, next up Falco Rune, how would you describe your relationship with Falco?
10:19I actually get along very well with him, he's a very nice guy I mean always has been to me and to
10:25my team and vice versa I always try to be you know available to him for you know any practice
10:33or advice or guidance or anything like that I you know remember him since he was quite young
10:41he appeared I think in south of France in Monaco where I was based
10:48and been training and he was in Morotoglu and we trained a lot on different surfaces
10:54spent some time his mother his sister they've all been quite nice to us so
11:01I like our relationship I think we get along very well
11:05and we respect each other and I think we have quite similar styles of tennis
11:09but when it comes to you know playing on the court and competing obviously we both have that fire and
11:16I'm sure that on Monday we'll see a lot of fireworks on the court he's a spectacular
11:22player no doubt he loves the big stage loves playing on grass I think he's very very tricky
11:28opponent so it's going to take my best tennis to to win right yeah
11:38talking about Olga Rune you've been knowing her for a while in Côte d'Azur which section of his
11:46game do you think you're the most used to have the forehand slice in the right corner now he's
11:53hitting more the forehand which which part of his I think he has always had a very good
12:04working ethics and he's been very dedicated guy so he you know once he sees something is off he's
12:10going to go out on the practice court and he's going to work on it and that's what I always
12:14loved about him and I think he's very all-around player you know he can play equally fast and well
12:24and aggressive and all both aggressive and defensive from both corners and forehand backhand
12:29all surfaces he's you know he was he's probably lacking a bit more consistency with his results
12:36comparing to you know Sinar Alkaraz which are his generation so but you know he he looks to me
12:46as a player that is ready for big things and you know just it takes a little bit of time maybe for
12:53him mentally as well for to to mature I think and to gain experience and to understand how he needs
13:02to play in a certain moments and so forth on the big stage but he's got quite a bit of experience
13:08already for a 21 year old if I'm not mistaken he's 21 so he's he's been working he's been working
13:14very hard I think he serve you know his service is a big weapon now maybe it wasn't so much in
13:19the past but serving forehand and then of course backhand is as solid as anybody's and return as
13:26well really close to the line really trying to you know take away the time from his opponent