Getty Image / Mike Hewitt
Novak Djokovic beat Alexei Popyrin to advance to Wimbledon’s Round of 16 in pursuit of his 8th Wimbledon title which would tie Roger Federer for the most all-time.
He faces Holger Rune today for a chance to move to the quarterfinals but after his win against Popyrin, Novak Djokovic had a LOT to say about how the sport of Tennis needs to change or it is at risk of being devoured by pickleball, primarily in the United States.
In the 1,047-word defense of the sport of Tennis, Novak Djokovic pointed to Formula 1 as a sport that is doing an incredible job marketing itself. Djokovic also pointed to the earlier rounds at Wimbledon as a portion of the sport that can be tweaked before he talked about tennis’ popularity vs other sports and pickleball‘s meteoric growth.
Novak Djokovic On Tennis vs Pickleball
Always touted as the fastest-growing sport in the world, pickleball has received an inordinate amount of attention in recent years in comparison to tennis which is still the #1 racket sport in the world by a mile. Novak Djokovic had a LOT to say about pickelball.
He said:
The full quote is quote long. Here it is in text for those who would rather read than watch a video. This quote was transcribed by @TheTennisLetter on X:
“In terms of innovation in our sport… other than Slams, we have to figure out how to attract a young audience. Tennis on one hand is in a good place, but at the same time, when we look at Formula 1 for example and what they’ve done in terms of marketing, in terms of growth of the sport, in terms of the races around the world and how popular they are.. I think we need to do a better job on our respective tours. The grand slams are always gonna do well. But I think our tours need to do better.”
“We are lucky to be very historic and a very global sport. But I think one of the studies that was done by PTPA 3 or 4 years ago showed that tennis is the 3rd or 4th most watched sport in the world along with cricket. Number 1 is football or soccer as you call it in the states. Second is basketball. Then it’s tennis and cricket. But tennis is number 9 or 10 on the list of all sports in terms of using its popularity, commercializing or capitalizing on that. I think there’s a huge space for growth.”
“We’re quite fractioned as a sport. There are quite a bit of things for us to collectively look at and try to improve it. We need to grow the number of players that live from this sport. Very rarely do I see in the media that you guys are writing about the fact that you have only 350 to 400 players both men, women, singles, doubles across the board that live from this sport on this planet. That’s deeply concerning for me. Yes, we talk about the grand slam winner wins this or that. The focus is always on the grand prize but what about the base level?”
“We’re still doing a very poor job there… very poor job. Tennis is a very global sport and it’s loved by millions of children that pick up a racquet that wanna 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, that has Grand Slam or history or big budgets.. so I think collectively we all have to come together or create a new foundation, a corner stone of really what tennis is about.. which is the base level. The club level.”
“Now we have paddle that is growing and emerging. People kind of have fun with it and say ‘Yeah but tennis is tennis. Tennis is the king or queen of all racquet sports.’ That’s true. But on a club level, tennis is endangered. If we don’t do something about it, globally or collectively, paddle, pickleball in the states, they’re gonna convert all the tennis clubs into paddle and pickleball. Because it’s more economical.”
“You have one tennis court… you can build 3 paddle courts on one tennis court. Do the simple math. It’s just much more financially viable for the owner of the club to have those courts. These are some of the things I wanted to share. In the grand scheme of things, we need to address all these challenges and issues. Because they’ve been out there for a while. I don’t think we’ve been addressing it in the proper way.”
I can’t speak for the rest of the world or even the rest of the United States but here in Florida, Novak Djokovic is correct the number of tennis courts have been shrinking for years to make room for pickleball courts and that’s all while pickleball-specific facilities have been built all over.
One aspect of tennis’ waning popularity that he doesn’t seem to acknowledge is how it’s a sport that has always been gatekept by the wealthy. Tennis and Golf are the quintessential country club sports. It’s not as if there was ever a time when tennis was as accessible to the masses as soccer or basketball. But Novak Djokovic is right in saying the sport of tennis needs to make changes to keep up with pickleball as the new wave of stars in tennis have yet to resonate with fans the way that Federer, Nadal, and Djokovic and the Williams sisters did for the past two decades.