"I'd be a supporter of recognizing Novak": Australian Open director Craig Tiley doesn't rule out naming stadium after Djokovic

Australian Open director Craig Tiley does not rule out naming the stadium after Serbia’s legendary tennis star Novak Djokovic.

The 36-year-old is regarded as the greatest player in the history of men’s singles tennis in the Open era after winning 24 Grand Slam titles.

Djokovic’s most successful major competition has been the Australian Open where he has lifted the title 10 times, which is a record in the tournament’s history as well.

Tiley was quoted in a recent report where he did not rule out the possibility of naming a stadium after the name of the current world number one, largely because of the success he had while playing in Melbourne over the years.

“You’re the second person who’s asked me that today,” he said. “Look, I mean, ultimately the naming of the arena is not my decision or tennis Australia’s because we….a lot of people don’t really understand the Wimbledon and the French and the US Open, they own the facility in which they run their events.

“We lease it and the Govt, the Victorian Govt owns our facilities and we lease the facilities from them and we are fortunate that they invest in those facilities but we don’t own them.

“So sometime in September, December we move in, we roll out everything for the event and by the middle of February we move out and then right after a year it’s run by a trust for concerts and all that.

“So you don’t see these tennis courts in the stadium. We wish we did own it because we think we could have some more creativity on running more tennis events throughout a year.”

He continued by saying: “Yeah, the government, they do a great job on the presynched and uh.. and it’s a great presynched infrastructure the Govt’s put together, it’s magnificent. But yeah, it’s a different construct to the other event. So naming of an arena would be a combination of input that would have to happen. But I would be certainly a supporter of recognizing Novak in some way, unbelievable achievements here in Australia.”