Dubai: Former World No. 1 and seven-time major winning tennis player Mats Wilander will headline a 24-hour tennis marathon in Dubai at Grand Hyatt courts from November 11-12 it was announced this week.

The event, supported by Dubai Sports Council and organised by Sherriff International Sports Management and Veracity World, will look to break the Guinness World Record for the most players in an exhibition match.

The current record stands at 76 players playing for nine hours and 15 minutes set by the same organisers in Dubai last year.

Gulf News spoke to the Swede ahead of his participation and got his opinion on the latest goings on in tennis.

GN: How excited are you to be coming to Dubai?

MW: I used to be in the Guinness World Records for being the youngest player to win a Grand Slam and for playing in the longest Davis Cup game, but both those records were beaten, so this is my chance to get back in there. Anytime you do something to raise the profile of a sport, and funds for charity, it’s great. I hope to be involved in the game for as long as my mind and body can handle, which I think is longer than the record. I’m the marathon man when it comes to long matches, I may be 52-years-old but I’m going to give it my best shot. But this record is a combination of time and numbers so I can’t do it alone, it will be a team effort.

Is Novak Djokovic on the slide and can Andy Murray take his World No. 1 spot?

Going into the US Open Andy Murray was the best player in the world but coming out of the US Open I think it is difficult to say who the best player in the world is, even though Novak is ranked World No.1. If Murray has another couple of months like he did this summer with the French Open (runner-up), Wimbledon (won) and the Olympics (gold) then early next year he will deservedly become World No. 1, but we are not there yet. Novak has been faltering over the summer but Murray kind of fell over at the US Open too with his quarter-final loss to Kei Nishikori. Murray had a big chance right there to take a step closer but equally I think Djokovic will be hurting a little from his US Open final defeat to Stan Wawrinka, so it makes you wonder what the next three or four months hold.

After Stan Wawrinka’s US Open win is it now a Big Five?

Stan has won three out of a possible three finals and a Davis Cup, but he’s definitely slightly behind in the bigger picture of who has been consistently dominating the majors. The consistency of the big four is scary but the consistency of the big three is unbelievable. You can throw Murray in there because of his consistency, but you can’t compare Andy or Stan’s three Majors to the 12, 14 or 17 of Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer. In consistency, the big four have ruled for 10 to maybe 15 years by the time they’ve finished, Stan may not be in that group when it comes to stats in majors. Over that period there have been five players to have won majors — Marion Cilic has thrown one in there — but it’s hard to compare; Stan on his day is certainly one of the best players in the world though that’s for sure.

What happens when the big four retires?

We are not going to have domination by any one single player. That will make the sport riskier and games closer. There will be more winners and I like that. This has been a great period in tennis but I think we are set for another great period when we go into majors and there are 20 guys who could win. Obviously it’s great to have a big name that transcends the sport and takes it into households where tennis isn’t usually watched, it needs those kind of players. But you also need the Leicester City story where the underdog can come in and everybody thinks ‘what the hell just happened’. A period where no one dominates also makes you appreciate how great the greats were. It will be like Tiger Woods and golf, where now anyone can win at any time.

Is Nick Kyrgios a candidate for future dominance?

Talent is having the ambition to reach your fullest potential as an individual and you don’t always come across that with a lot of players. Nick might have it in there, he might still be growing and it could still come out if he pushes himself to be the best he can be. I think we’ve seen flashes of that from him but we’ve also seen flashes of another side where clearly winning this match isn’t the most important thing right now in life. That’s something we see in most normal human beings. But we haven’t seen that with Federer or Nadal, or lately Djokovic or Murray. They don’t want to win every game they need to win.