Nadal: New ATP chief must listen more

Tennis.com - 9/2/2008 12:02:57 AM
NEW YORK (AP)—Rafael Nadal took a verbal swipe at outgoing ATP head Etienne de Villiers on Monday, saying the chief executive should have done a better job of communicating with players.
De Villiers is stepping down when his contract expires in December. Since taking over the men’s tennis tour in 2005, he oversaw the introduction of video replay, shuffled the calendar and increased prize money.
He’s also come under criticism this year from Nadal and other players. Asked at the U.S. Open what he’d like De Villiers’ successor to do, Nadal said: “For me, most important thing is, first of all, a little bit more communication than the past. For sure, the second thing is one person who knows a little bit about the tennis, no? And one person who wants to talk about with the persons who knows the tennis well.”
Nadal added that he thinks it would be “impossible” for the tennis calendar to be worse than it was in 2008.