In an exclusive interview to Tennis World USA the Vienna’s Erste Bank Open organizer Edwin Weindorfer spoke about Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic playing an exhibition match in Kazakhstan on October 24 during the same week as ATP Basel and Vienna tournaments.
“There was an approval from ATP CEO (Chris Kermode) because, per rules, during ATP tournaments, an exhibition match cannot be held. So we need to respect that. I do not think it’s good that there are exhibitions ongoing during ATP events.
Players are ATP members. There is an off season after the ATP Finals and anybody can play during that time.” Weindorfer also organizes the WTA Berlin and ATP Mallorca events and he is also the Tournament Director in Stuttgart’s Mercedes Cup.
Analyzing the grass-court season overall, Weindorfer said: “Two of the third grass-court weeks are very good. The middle week – Halle and Queen’s and now with Berlin – is the best week not only for grass-court tennis but also for tennis in general because everyone wants to prepare ahead of Wimbledon.
Everybody played during that week in the past except Djokovic, basically. The third week just before Wimbledon is a tough one because a lot of players are in England but I think a lot of players will come here because the weather was bad last year in England and good in mallorca so we can offee them a lot of benefits.
The Stuttgart week is very good, not as good as Halle and Queen’s, and two years ago except Zverev, we had the same players as Halle did. Then if Thiem or Nadal reach French Open final, they do not want to play the following week.”
source https://cvrnewsdirect.com/vienna-open-organizer-reacts-to-nadal-and-djokovic-playing-exhibition-match/
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