Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal have endorsed the proposal to insert an extra week into the grass court season to ease what is now a tight two-week transition from the clay of Paris to the grass of Wimbledon.
Djokovic and Nadal said they support the longer turnaround time on the eve of Wimbledon’s Monday start.
“We are all trying to work for the good of the sport,” said Djokovic.
“Everybody who is involved in tennis, we all love this sport and all try to make it better for everybody. We’ve had this schedule forever; it has been always exactly the same with only two weeks between end of Roland Garros and start of Wimbledon.” That schedule is too short in the Serbian’s eyes.
“We need an extra week because it would work in the favour of players because it would give especially the top players a little bit more time to get used to the surface.” Djokovic said the workload required for even the best to move from the slowest surface in the game to arguably the fastest would be aided by the proposed extra seven days.
Nadal agreed with his Serbian rival.
“I always say it is great to play more and more on clay and grass because those surfaces are historic in the world of tennis. I will never have anything against playing more weeks on grass or clay,” said the Spanish ace. “I think it’s easier for the physical performance, (and preventing) for the injuries for the players.”
