Top two seeds, Novak Djokovic and Juan Martin del Potro, both believe the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships deserve to be upgraded to a Masters 1000 event on the ATP calendar.
Djokovic has not missed a single edition of the tournament since he made his debut here in 2007, and after he captured his fourth title at the Aviation Club last year, had said on court that he wishes the event could gain Masters 1000 status rather than its current ATP 500 level.
“I still stand behind what I said,” Djokovic said yesterday. “I still believe that this tournament deserves it. Because considering the fields that we’ve had in the last 10 years, there’s always three or four minimum top-10 players.
“So it definitely deserves to be a 1000 event in my opinion. I think many top players would agree with that fact because it’s such a strong event. And it has the potential, it has many courts, the facilities, still can improve, the people here love tennis, there’s a lot of attendance.”
The tour has nine Masters 1000 events which are the biggest tournaments behind the grand slams and Djokovic says he does not know the specifics on how Dubai can become a bigger event but would like to see it happen one day.
“Now if this tournament can take away somebody’s 1000 or it can be another 1000 that’s something that’s more complicated to talk about now,” said the Serb.
Del Potro agrees with Djokovic and believes in the potential of the tournament.
“I agree with what Novak said. This tournament has five top-10 players. We have very good facilities here. Every single match the stands are full and they make a beautiful atmosphere for the tennis matches and they deserve to keep growing and maybe one day they can be a Masters 1000,” said the No2 seed.
Meanwhile, Djokovic took the opportunity to come to his new coach Boris Becker’s defence, responding to critics who attributed the Serb’s quarter-final loss at the Australia Open against Stanislas Wawrinka to the shake up in his coaching staff.
“The year before I won in the fourth round against Stan in five sets, so it’s sport. You win and you lose. It’s not because Boris was there instead of Marian (Vajda). We are not significantly changing anything in my game.”
