Novak Djokovic appears to have U-turned on a matter he’s been at odds with Andre Agassi over. The tennis legend will soon begin the defence of his US Open title.

But before the fourth and final major of the year gets underway at the weekend, Djokovic will be participating in sponsor Head’s pickleball tournament on Thursday (August 22). The racket sport has shot to popularity in the States particularly in recent years.

But it was just last month at Wimbledon, after his third-round victory over Alexei Popyrin, that he claimed it was “endangering” the sport he’s been so successful in. Djokovic called on tennis chiefs to buck up their ideas.

“Tennis is a very global sport and it’s loved by millions of children that pick up a racket and want to play, but we don’t make it accessible. We don’t make it so affordable,” he passionately explained.

“Now we have the padel that is growing and emerging. People kind of have fun with it and say ‘yeah, but tennis is tennis’. Tennis is the king or queen of all the racket sports, that’s true. But on a club level, tennis is endangered.

“If we don’t do something about it, as I said, globally or collectively, padel, pickleball in [the] States, they’re going to convert all the tennis clubs into padel and pickleball because it’s just more economical.

“You have one tennis court. You can build three padel courts on one tennis court. You do the simple math. It’s just much more financially viable for an owner of a club to have those courts.”

Djokovic’s view is the complete opposite of eight-time Grand Slam champion Agassi, who’s been one of the leading ambassadors of pickleball. He believes it fills a void that tennis doesn’t, but both will be just fine existing alongside one another.

Putting his point across in a hypothetical situation, Agassi said: “If you have your weekend-warrior match in tennis and I give you tickets to Alcaraz-Nadal playing down the street, you’re going to give up playing to watch.

“But with pickleball, if I say the best are playing down the street, you’d say ‘well, what about us? What about our game? We want to play’. It’s a real participation-centric activity.

“I love watching pickleball, but only until I get to that point of wanting to go play it. I’ve seen pickleball save so many tennis clubs because people come and play. This sport translates culture, it breaks down cultural barriers. It’s people, it’s community, anybody can play it.”

Given his contract with racket manufacturer Head, it seems Djokovic has little choice but to join the likes of Jannik Sinner and Barbora Krejcikova as well as pickleball pros Callie Smith and Roscoe Bellamy in New York tomorrow to give it a go for the first time.