Don’t expect tennis to resume in near future, says Nadal

Rafael Nadal thinks the global nature of tennis means there is little chance tournaments will go ahead any time soon as sport continues to be paralysed by the coronavirus pandemic.

Novak Djokovic also anticipates a lengthy delay before tennis can be played even behind closed doors, with the world number one expecting players to have to wait a “few months”.

The French Open, which Nadal has won a record 12 times, has been postponed until September, shortly after the US Open, while Wimbledon was cancelled earlier this month for the first time since World War II.

But the prospect of either grand slams at Roland Garros or Flushing Meadows being played with fans appears increasingly remote.

“tennis is a global sport,” Nadal told Spanish radio station Onda Cero . “We go from country to country and a lot of people have to move around.

“It seems difficult to me for any big tournament to be played in the short or medium term.”

Football’s major leagues are preparing to play behind closed doors for several weeks to complete their seasons and avoid losing considerable sums of money from broadcasting contracts.

But tennis tournaments are more reliant on fans for their income, making it more complicated to stage competitions in empty stadiums.

“It is not an easy decision,” Djokovic told the same programme. “I am ready but I think we have to wait a few months.”

“If you could play behind closed doors, I would be delighted but I think it’s very difficult,” added Nadal.

Meanwhile, the US Tennis Association expects to make a decision about the US Open in June and is also planning to provide some $15 million in assistance to tennis bodies struggling due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the New York Times reported on Thursday.

The tennis season was halted in early March due to the pandemic as countries began locking down borders and introducing measures to contain the spread of the flu-like virus.

The USTA, organisers of the US Open, have said they were currently going ahead with plans to host the hardcourt Grand Slam in New York as scheduled from Aug. 31-Sept. 14.

“We don’t have a hard date set yet (to make a decision), just because things are changing so fast,” USTA Chief Executive Michael Dowse was quoted as saying in the NYT report.

“You can imagine the runway to ramp up the US Open is not a short runway, so I’m thinking probably the latter part of June, sometime in that June time frame.”

The USTA did not immediately provide a response when contacted by Reuters.

Over 636,000 people have tested positive for the new coronavirus and close to 31,000 have died in the United States, according to a Reuters tally, with New York the worst-hit state.

An indoor tennis facility at the site of the US Open is currently serving as a temporary hospital due to the medical crisis in New York.

The USTA, which governs the sport in the country, said it would cut salaries of its top executives by 20% for the rest of 2020 to raise funds to support American tennis facilities, teaching professionals and grassroots tennis organisations.

Reuters