Serbian tennis player Novak Djokovic spoke about problems with the courts at the tournament in Rome.
“To be honest, Rome has never been famous for the high quality of the courts. Although I know all the guys, Marco is the head of the department that deals with the courts. I consider them friends. I’ve known them for 15 years and get along very well with them. Again, I can’t blame them.
It would be interesting to understand how many people are playing on the court before the start of the tournament. It seems that last year I asked and it turned out that very little. Played pre-qualifiers. If the clay court is not used, this happens. The court is destroyed. A lot of holes are formed. The surface is uneven, very bad rebounds, the ground accumulates. It’s the dirt part of the season now, so we have to accept the fact that there will be a lot of uneven, non-standard rebounds. This has been happening in Rome for several years now. In general, I remember, maybe 10 years ago, they told me that people from Roland Garros were invited to Rome and that year the court was the best. I don’t know why they won’t be called again, because it is obvious that they are the best specialists in clay courts in the world.
I practiced on court number 5 for several days, and there was a feeling that it was actually better in quality than the center one, because it is played more. It’s just that this surface needs to be played on. I don’t know how many people played on this court before the tournament this year, but I’m sure it wasn’t used much. This is a constant problem. There is little that can be done now. It remains only to close up the holes. I think we have to come to terms with this reality. I hope that the court will improve during the tournament, ”the ATP press service quoted Djokovic as saying.