Novak Djokovic slams media over claims he called for Australian Open boycott

Novak Djokovic was one furious man at his post match press conference, with all his anger directed towards the media personnel for circulating false reports about Djokovic conducting a meeting of ATP players, in order to form a breakaway body of active male players, demanding an increase in prize money.

Djokovic though cleared the air, saying that the media had made a huge issue out of it, as the players had only gathered or a small meeting regarding a few issues on the Tennis circuit, and that he wasn’t trying to rally the players into any sort of a ‘breakaway union’.

“Some of you have written a story that has been a little bit exaggerated. You’ve taken things out of the context. I saw that you’ve portrayed me as someone who is very greedy, asks for more money and wants to boycott. I respect your freedom and decisions to do that. But not much of what you wrote is true. What happened is that we, players, just wanted to talk about certain topics. There was no decisions being made. There was no talks about boycott or anything like that.” Djokovic said.

Djokovic tried to emphasise on the fact that no talk about boycotting tournaments was carried out.

“I know that you guys are trying to take this forward several steps. Obviously, you’re talking about union, you’re talking about boycott, you’re talking about radical decisions to make and move so we can get financial compensations the way we deserve it. But there was no talks about that.

Again, I’m saying it was subjects that we never get a chance to talk about in such a large group. That’s all it was. I never have intentionally thrown anybody out of the room. Everything was done in a very normal, polite way. Players wanted to stay alone. There was up to a hundred players in the room. We talked about things that we talked about. That’s all.”

Djokovic breezed through his opening round against Young, winning 6-1, 6-2, 6-4. He will face Gael Monfils in the second round, in what promises to be a very entertaining encounter.