Alex de Minaur beat Botic van de Zandschulp and advanced to the semifinal in Rotterdam, and we spoke to the Australian after the match.
One of the biggest talking points during this week in Rotterdam has been the balls. Numerous players have described the balls as being slow, terrible, and not even round.
Today, Alex de Minaur went a step further, explaining how he feels he gets nowhere when voicing his opinions to the people in charge.
We are being seen as entitled
First of all, the Australian was happy he managed to get through in tough conditions against Dutchman Botic van de Zandschulp, who pushed him to the limits and forced the match into three sets. However, de Minaur still took the opportunity to comment on the balls.
“Yeah, again today it was as bad as it looked with the ball. It is quite tough to be aggressive, so you have to find the balance between hitting through and not making unforced errors. I am super happy I found a way today, but it was difficult.”
When being asked about whether the people in charge are listening to the players, the Australian gave a crystal-clear answer.
“To be honest with you, it is a tough one. I don’t know how much I can get into it, but look… we as players voice our opinions and ultimately do what we can to make the sport as a whole a better product,” said de Minaur before he explained a bit more.
“But whenever we talk about certain things with the purpose of growing the game and making it better… sometimes when we voice our opinion, we get viewed or described as being entitled because we have a lot of amazing things in this sport already.”
“No one is arguing that, but the moment we are trying to help out and make some comments to try to improve it even more, sometimes they make it sound like we are just complaining.”
De Minaur hopes that the fact he is speaking about it publicly after winning matches can help create focus on the problem.
“Maybe the fact that I am standing here talking about it after winning matches also adds a bit more validity because it is not like I am using it as an excuse.”
Alex de Minaur is not a part of the player council, but the Australian still has a big voice in tennis, being the world No. 8.
All the balls on the ATP Tour have to be officially approved by the ATP, and from there the process usually is that the tournament and the ATP agree on which ball to play with during the tournaments.
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