INDIAN WELLS, Calif. — Novak Djokovic played his first official tennis match in more than a month on Saturday night, defeating the American Bjorn Fratangelo in straight sets at the BNP Paribas Open. But Djokovic has hardly been taking an extended break from official tennis business. 1 in the world by a hefty margin, he is also wielding his renewed clout off court as president of the ATP player council. But the unusual and inconvenient thing in men’s tennis is that the players and paymasters are part of the same internally conflicted organization: the ATP. “The structure works against us and the imbalance being already there between the tournaments and the players, the imbalance endures.”

Source: New York Times March 11, 2019 23:02 UTC