With the withdrawal list for tennis tournaments having become as big a talking point as the matches on the court, it is clear that the sport now has a problem.<\/p>\n
It was no surprise when Canadian Open organisers confirmed that both world No 1 Jannik Sinner and 24-time Grand Slam champion Novak Djokovic have joined the injured Carlos Alcaraz by confirming they will not be playing in Montreal next month, with the eagerness for elite players to add breaks into their season leaving this first Masters 1000 event of the North American hard court swing open to withdrawals.<\/p>\n
Sinner and Djokovic<\/a> can use the Cincinnati Open later in August as their warm-up event for the US Open and it leaves the Canadian tournament grappling for credibility as it has become the tournament players are happy to skip.<\/p>\n The ATP 1000 tournaments are mandatory events and dropping out of them means players receive a smaller pay-out from the ATP bonus pool payments at the end of the season.<\/p>\n Yet money is not a huge motivation for wealthy superstars like Sinner and Djokovic\u2019s status, as their bank balances have not been a motivating factor for many years now.<\/p>\n Andy Murray has already suggested the reason for Jannik Sinner and Novak Djokovic\u2019s Canadian Open withdrawals<\/a><\/p>\n ATP Canadian Open withdrawal list: Jannik Sinner and Novak Djokovic join growing list of absentees<\/a><\/p>\n The reason why this latest withdrawal announcement felt different was the reaction that came from Canadian Open officials, as they confirmed talks are underway with the ATP Tour to try and alleviate the issues of persistent withdrawals.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are obviously very disappointed that Jannik and Novak won\u2019t be joining us in Montreal this year, especially after they also withdrew from last year\u2019s tournament in Toronto,\u201d said the Canadian Open\u2019s tournament director Valerie Tetreault.<\/p>\n \u201cWe respect their decisions and understand that, with such a demanding schedule, players\u2019 health must remain the priority.<\/p>\n \u201cThat said, we believe the frequency of these last-minute withdrawals in the last few years raises a broader issue for our sport.<\/p>\n \u201cMasters 1000 events are among the flagship tournaments on the tour, and fans rightfully expect to see the world\u2019s best compete.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are already in discussions with the ATP to ensure this matter receives serious consideration.\u201d<\/p>\n Would the ATP Tour consider a rule change that could see top players punished if they don\u2019t play in Masters 1000 events? That seems highly unlikely.<\/p>\n The financial incentives the ATP Tour have put in place to encourage players to play in their nine marquee events may be the only weapon tennis chiefs have to encourage them to play, as the prospect of punishing players by taking ranking points away from them would cause an internal rift that would not be welcomed.<\/p>\n Changing the calendar is another option, but finding space for extra weeks to move tournaments has been hugely hampered by the ATP Tour\u2019s decision to move most of their Masters 1000 events into 12-day competitions rather than a traditional one-week event.<\/p>\n Once again, that decision was inspired by a drive to increase revenues and give players more prize money, so reducing those events back down to seven days would negatively impact both the rewards for players and the improvements of facilities at tournament venues.<\/p>\n The brutal truth must be that the Canadian Open has now become the most diluted Masters 1000 event of ATP Tour year and it would be no surprise if more big names pull out over the next week.<\/p>\n Want more from Tennis365? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list<\/a> for tennis coverage you can trust.<\/strong><\/p>\n It is a real shame for Canadian tennis fans who have also seen a host of big name withdrawals in the WTA Tour 1000 event also being staged in their country in the opening week of August, but there is no obvious solution to a crisis driven by the desire to regenerate as much revenue as possible for players who are demanding more and more cash from those running the sport.<\/p>\n READ NEXT: Patrick Mouratoglou hits back at Novak Djokovic claims as he \u2018completely disagrees\u2019 with snipes<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n The post Novak Djokovic and Jannik Sinner decision not enough to force tennis chiefs into radical rule change<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" With the withdrawal list for tennis tournaments having become as big a talking point as the matches on the court, it is clear that the sport now has a problem. It was no surprise when Canadian Open organisers confirmed that both world No 1 Jannik Sinner and 24-time Grand Slam champion Novak Djokovic have joined […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2545"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2545\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}More Tennis News<\/h2>\n