The debate around the high-profile withdrawals from the Canadian Open continues, and some have suggested the tournament should offer bigger bonuses to those who compete.

But Alexander Zverev is of the opinion that more money won’t make a difference to the biggest stars – especially tennis great Novak Djokovic – “won’t care” about an additional bonus.

For the second year in a row, Djokovic, Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz won’t play at the Canadian Open with the former two opting to skip the tournament while the latter is still recovering from injury.

Djokovic and Alcaraz were also absent in 2024 as the event clashed with the Paris Olympics although it is highly debatable if the 24-time Grand Slam winner would have played as his last appearance at the tournament was back in 2018.

Some believe one way to counter the problem is to offer players more money for signing up for the event, but Zverev insists that is not a solution.

“That’s the way it is right now. I mean, it’s not rocket science. We get bonuses at the end of the year if we play all nine Masters,” he pointed out.

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The reigning French Open champion was then asked “Something bigger maybe, something more important so that players actually care, like Novak would come?”

He replied: “You think Novak will care if he gets a bigger bonus? I think the guy has – I mean, if I would have to guess, the guy is north of 400 million in his bank account, and so I’m not sure he would care about 50,000 more or less.”

Some have also proposed that players get docked ranking points when they skip events, but again Zverev was having none of it as he believes the extended Masters 1000 format makes it difficult for players to compete at all events.

“I don’t think he cares about his ranking either. I honestly don’t think so,” he said. “But what do you want? Do you want us to drop in rankings if we don’t play?

“Honestly, if everything goes to the old and we would play one-week Masters events, yeah, we can talk about it, but if you’re forcing us to be away for two and a half, three weeks during Grand Slams and the same then goes for Masters events, you can’t force us to play. Sorry, that’s nonsense.

“At the end of the day, if you play all nine Masters, you get a bonus at the end of the year. So there is that to it as well.”