The clay-court swing has been placed in serious jeopardy following the suspension of the ATP calendar.
The ATP has confirmed that there will be no more tennis tournaments taking place in the next six weeks due to the worldwide Covid-19 crises.
Meetings took place behind closed doors on Wednesday between players and officials about the current status of the sport following the suspension of Indian Wells earlier this week. A tournament dubbed the ‘fifth grand slam’ that sold over 475,000 tickets last year.
It is understood that the ATP and WTA had separate meetings, but it is unclear as to how much communication there was between the two governing bodies. Multiple player’s were reported to express concerns about having to continue playing during the Coronavirus outbreak.
But now the ATP World Tour has announced a six week suspension following the coronavirus outbreak with the main and challenger tours returning on the 27th of April.
“This is not a decision that was taken lightly and it represents a great loss for our tournaments, players, and fans worldwide,” Andrea Gaudenzi, the ATP World Tour chairman said.
“However we believe this is the responsible action needed at this time in order to protect the health and safety of our players, staff, the wider tennis community and general public health in the face of this global pandemic.
“The worldwide nature of our sport and the international travel required presents significant risks and challenges in today’s circumstances, as do the increasingly restrictive directives issued by local authorities.
“We continue to monitor this on a daily basis and we look forward to the Tour resuming when the situation improves. In the meantime, our thoughts and well-wishes are with all those that have been affected by the virus.”
Also in the statement, the ATP World Tour announced that a decision surrounding the ranking points will be made in due course.
Prior to the announcement, some players had already taken action. Marco Panichi, who is Novak Djokovic’s fitness coach, confirmed that the team was already on a flight to Europe in an Instagram post. World No.1 Djokovic is the president of the ATP Player Council. On the same day as their departure, the American government confirmed the country will be new travel restrictions placed on 26 European countries in a bid to curb the spread of Coronavirus.
“I agree with most players, although I understand why some of the players think the tour should continue.” Djokovic told Republika.rs on Wednesday.
“To date, the decision-making process has been based on individual cases depending on the “viral situation” in a given city, state. But after the WHO declared Pandemic, it affects the entire world.
“I honestly do not know what can happen under these new circumstances and I do not know if we can play Miami or any other tournament until the WHO removes the status of the pandemic.” He added.
This announcement comes after Miami Mayor, Carlos Gimenez, announced a state of emergency in the local area therefore cancelling this year’s tournament.
Hours later the tournament confirmed this and also stated that the tournament will not be re-scheduled for later in the year.
Speaking about the ongoing situation, Heather Bowler from the ITF has told Ubitennis that they are working closely with the other two governing bodies (ATP and WTA). Assuring that collective approach is being taken to cope with the current threat of Covid-19, which has been declared a pandemic by the World Health Organisation (WHO). The ITF recently confirmed the suspension of the Fed Cup playoffs and finals.
“We are of course working closely with the WTA and ATP as well as with the IOC to minimise the health risk due to the spread of COVID-19.” Said Bowler.
“There will be further announcements as the situation is evolving on a daily basis and tennis is working collaboratively to handle the impact on our sport.
“Since early Feb 2020, the ITF formed a dedicated COVID-19 Advisory Group comprised of medical, travel and security experts which is continuously monitoring the data, WHO guidelines and the steps announced by national authorities.”
There is still to be confirmation from the WTA and ITF about a possible suspension on their tours but if this was to be the case then there would be no tennis until the 27th of April.
This means tournaments like the Monte-Carlo Rolex Masters, ATP Barcelona and WTA Stuttgart would be amongst the casualties.
The ATP World tour is set to resume with 250 events in Estoril and Munich.
