Roger Federer breaks silence on the biggest scandal in men’s tennis
Roger Federer believes there are lessons to be learnt from the Justin Gimelstob incident and agrees with the American’s decision to step down from his position at the ATP board.
After attacking a long time friend, venture capitalist Randall Kaplan on Halloween last year, Gimelstob pleaded no contest to felony assault, reduced to misdemeanour.
The former tennis star and coach of US athlete John Isner was charged and sentenced to three years of probation, 60 days of community service and 52 weeks of anger management classes.
The 42-year-old was an influential voice in the industry and was widely believed to be behind the non-renewal of ATP CEO Chris Kermode.
And now that Gimelstob is no longer on the board, a number of people want Kermode back to his original position.
“I don’t know exactly the process, when the votes are happening, when the new CEO, all this stuff gets decided. But anyway (Kermode) should maybe be put back in the mix,” Federer said at the Madrid Open.
“But then again I don’t know if he would want to be after everything that happened.
“Sometimes when these things happen, it is like, ‘OK, I had a good run, and it’s OK to go’.”
The top players in the game were heavily criticised for their silence on the matter, with only Andy Murray and Stan Wawrinka calling for his removal, before Gimelstob stepped down himself.
“I think it’s definitely the right move by Justin. He needs to go back and figure things out. There is no doubt about that,” Federer said.
“And the tour needs to keep moving forward in these challenging times and important times right now.
“I was speaking also to some of the players on the Council to get a feel where they were standing when everything was brewing and I’m happy that the decision was taken by Justin and that now we can move forward and really like learn from what had happened also.”