Federer says ATP needs global sponsor (Australian Open diary)
By DPA, IANSMonday, January 25, 2010
MELBOURNE - While playing for a fourth Australian Open title, Roger Federer is also taking his duties as head of the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) player council seriously.
While putting the administration on the back burner as the second week of the Grand Slam begins, the Swiss star knows that there are off-court issues that will need solutions in 2010.
The first is finding a global sponsor to replace Mercedes, which departed after more than a decade at the end of 2008.
So far, new ATP head Adam Helfant has had little to say on the major financial issues, insisting that negotiations with unspecified companies are ongoing and leaving it at that vague answer.
The energetic Federer takes more of an action-man approach: “I think it would be nice to have a main sponsor for the ATP, I think that’s maybe number one priority.
“We need tennis on TV as much as possible, especially in Europe where the markets are pretty difficult to get to sometimes.
“One’s French speaking, one’s German, one’s English, one’s Italian. You have to go to each individual market, which kind of makes it hard. I think that would be nice, to get as much tennis on TV as possible.”
He is also seeking a shortening of the 11-month schedule, a puzzle he admits may never be satisfactorily solved.
“I don’t know if that’s a really big priority. It’s always something we’ll talk about for the next hundred years. But we’ll see if it’s possible to change or not.
“And the top guys (Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic also serve on the council), I think we’ll come together and find a solution for that.”
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Dokic dad hits out at her from jail
Disgraced Damir Dokic has struck out at his daughter Jelena through a magazine interview a week after she crashed out of the Australian Open.
Jelena Dokic’s career has been a study in strife, with her father a key reason for her downfall. The 26-year-old was coached as a teenager by her now-jailed parent, but has not spoken to him since 2005 and remains estranged from the most of her family, reports indicate.
But Dokic has taunted his daughter from a Serbian jail, where he is serving a 15-month sentence for threatening to kill the Australian ambassador to Serbia.
“My desire for her is to shine again,” Dokic told Women’s Day magazine. “I would like her to be number one.”
But he added that it would be impossible for her to recover without his guidance.
Dokic, ranked 56th, has had a patchy return to tennis over recent seasons, reaching the Australian open quarter-finals a year ago but falling at this edition in the first round in a disheartening performance.
