Novak Djokovic has been told to pull out of Thursday’s Head NYC Mash Up pickleball tournament after sending a grave warning to tennis bosses about newer racket sports last month. The 24-time Grand Slam champion is part of a star-studded line-up set to play at the event.
Djokovic will join fellow tennis stars Jannik Sinner and Barbora Krejcikova as well as pickleball aces Callie Smith and Roscoe Bellamy in New York.
The tournament has been arranged to go ahead just days before the US Open begins at Flushing Meadows, with Djokovic on the hunt for a record 25th Grand Slam title at the final major of the year.
The pickleball event is set to be streamed live on the Head Tennis Instagram page. But after the tournament was promoted by the Tennis Channel on X earlier this week, fans demanded Djokovic reverses his decision to play.
“Stop this immediately,” wrote @john_c_palmer, while @IbrahimKhory penned: “Noooooooo. Please Novak, nooooo. I hate this sport.” Tennis fan @2016daz exclaimed: “Nooooooo! That’s the worst racquet sport ever. And @Hulk_097 added: “Don’t do it bro.
One Djokovic follower @dannstra even appeared to allude to the Serbian’s recent comments as he wrote: “Ohh the irony.” And @703omerta simply penned: “Shameful.
Djokovic was asked about playing five-set matches following his four-set victory against Alexei Popyrin at Wimbledon last month.
And the 37-year-old took the opportunity to take aim at the newer racket sports as he said: “I think collectively we all have to come together and understand how to maintain the sport’s foundation or create a new foundation, a cornerstone of really what tennis is about – which is the base level, right, the club level.
“Now we have the paddle or padel, as you call it in the States, 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 the racquet sports, that’s true. But on a club level, tennis is endangered. If we don’t do something about it, as I said, globally or collectively, paddle, pickleball in the States, they’re going to convert all the tennis clubs into paddle and pickleball because it’s just more economical.
You have one tennis court. You can build three paddle courts on one tennis court. You do the simple math. It’s just much more financially viable for an owner of a club to have those courts.
“In the grand scheme of things, I feel like we need to address all of these, I feel like, challenges and issues for us really. They have been out there for a while, but I don’t think we have been addressing them in a proper way.
