Gilles Simon: I played many matches with very few fans. In any case, I will survive

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Former World No. 6 Gilles Simon says he would be ready to play without fans at the Grand Slam tournaments since there have been many times in his career that he has played on courts with very few spectators and sometimes even no spectators.
Simon was speaking to Florent Serra and Rodolphe Gilbert on the Tennis Break News site.

Gilles Simon says he will survive if he has to play tournaments without fans

The 35 year old Frenchman says, "I'm a tennis player, so I play. I have known great atmospheres at Roland-Garros, a full centre court... But I played a lot of matches in my life where there were very few fans.

In any case, I will survive. The reality is that apart from the top four in the world who systematically play on the Centre Court, sometimes there are tournaments throughout the year when there is no one there. At Roland Garros, most of the time it is far from being full." Simon says he hoped that the governing bodies of tennis would have worked on some of the deeper problems that exist in the sport during the shutdown.

"I would have liked that during these months without tennis, we realize that this was the problem. There are seven entities that run tennis today, the Four Grand Slams, the ITF, ATP and the WTA, and each establishes a balance of power with the others and establishes temporary alliances.

Everyone does their own thing by trying to rally the players. This prevents tennis from growing as it should. No one represents them (the lower ranked players). It lacks a real representativeness of the players, an body which would work in the interest of the players.

ATP does not represent players, it is false. The three player representatives in ATP must work for ATP and cannot go against it." Gilles Simon is currently ranked No. 54 in the world. He has won 14 singles titles on the ATP Tour.