Novak Djokovic casts the first stone in insurrection against the ATP | Kevin Mitchell


Serb launches player rebellion against the game’s ruling body by assembling his masked rebels on a Flushing Meadows court

At first glance, Novak Djokovic’s uprising at the Battle of Flushing Meadows looked to be as clumsily executed as Arthur Scargill’s 1984 miner’s strike. A leader with career earnings of more than $$140m and probably worth twice that has asked his troops, struggling after almost six months without work, to risk their careers bang in the middle of a crippling pandemic and with winter only a couple of months away.

Yet, as with the old Yorkshire comb-over, it is hard not to sympathise with him, and his followers. They want more fairness, more money for their poorest members, a bigger say in the running of the company (quite how much remains puzzlingly vague), and a better schedule. Equally, it is impossible not to acknowledge the “horrible timing” of their stand, as Dan Evans put it the other day.

Related: Nick Kyrgios accuses Novak Djokovic of 'lacking leadership and humility'

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