Tennis player Andy Roddick said that the top players on the ATP Tour "may still meet this week in Shanghai to discuss their problems with the tour and various ways to resolve them, even if Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer aren't there," according to Justin Bergman of the AP. Roddick "cautioned that a slow approach is the proper way to go." Roddick said, "I don't think we're storming offices, but I think the sentiment is still there. We need to be smart about it and take our time and make sure that it's well thought out and not be kind of reactionary. But, you know, there is a discussion going on. You have to have a voice in order to get it accomplished" (AP, 10/10). In London, Neil Harman notes, "There was a concern, perhaps, that the fire had gone out of the players' bellies" following complaints at this year's U.S. Open. But Harman adds, "Roddick thinks not" (LONDON TIMES, 10/11). Roddick also "raised the issue of earnings for players lower down the rankings compared with other sports, which forces them to play a demanding schedule." Roddick said that tennis players "ranked about 80 or 90 in the world were not making the same money as many baseball players and were also having to pay expenses out of their own pockets." Roddick: "That is who it would benefit even more so than us, but it starts with us" (AFP, 10/10).
SOONER OR LATER: Andy Murray and Rafael Nadal, who also expressed their displeasure with the current system during the U.S. Open, "have cast doubt on whether the top men's tennis players will be able to sit down with each [other] this week, or perhaps anytime soon." However, Murray today said that the players "would try to get together by the end of the year, though he acknowledged that this may also be difficult to organize" (AP, 10/11).
