Should this year’s French Open get the green light to take place, it is likely that the event will be like one never seen before.
The most prestigious clay court event of the sport has already been delayed by four months due to the COVID-19 pandemic that has infected more than four million people worldwide, according to John Hopkins University. No professional tennis tournament has taken part since March with the resumption date of the Tour’s sill under discussion by the various governing bodies. Nevertheless, the French Tennis Federation (FFT) are staying upbeat about their chances of hosting the grand slam.
FFT chief Bernard Guidicelli has confirmed that numerous options are on the table regarding Roland Garros. Including the prospect of holding the event behind closed doors for the first time in history. A route that has been taken by other sports such as the South Korea’s top tier football league known as the K League.
“We haven’t ruled out any option. Roland Garros is first and foremost a story of matches and players,” he told the Journal du Dimanche.
“There is the tournament taking place in the stadium, and the tournament on TV screens.
“Millions of viewers around the world are waiting. Organising it behind closed doors would allow part of the business model — television rights (which account for more than a third of the tournament’s revenues) — to go ahead. This cannot be overlooked.”
Recently France has allowed horse racing to start once again from Monday behind closed doors. A somewhat controversial move with professional football being banned from taking place in any capacity until at least September.
There have been signs that the French Open could be staged without fans. Recently they reimburse all tickets for the 2020 event with no new tickets yet to be re-issued. In a statement issued by the FFT, they said the pandemic has created “uncertainty for public events everywhere.’ Should such a decision take place, the tournament will still take a huge financial hit. Last year a total of 520,000 fans attended, according to tournament director Guy Forget.
“Roland Garros is the driving force of tennis in France, it is what feeds the players in our ecosystem (260 million euros in revenue, or 80% of the turnover of the FFT),” Guidicelli stated. “We think of them first, protecting them. We made a courageous choice and today, no one regrets it.”
“A tournament without a date is a boat without a rudder — we don’t know where we’re going.
“We positioned ourselves as far in the calendar as possible, anxious not to harm major events, so that no Masters 1000 or any Grand Slam would be affected. The turn of events seems to have proved us right.”
The waiting game
There is a lot of guessing and hoping when it comes to the prospect of the 2020 season resuming. In a recent interview with Reuters, ATP chairman Andrea Gaudenzi said he was hopeful of the men’s Tour starting again before the year end. A somewhat more optimistic view than that of Rafael Nadal.
“It would be unwise to call it quits now,” Gaudenzi told Reuters. “Nobody knows what will happen, we want to keep an optimistic overview.
“Obviously, there could be a subset of options, which is playing with closed gates or deciding how to deal with travel restrictions. But we have not made these decisions so far because they are all hypothetical scenarios.”
The ATP has stated that their decision regarding playing events in July will be made on May 15th. Meanwhile, their deadline for August is June 1st. It is expected that WTA and ITF will be following a similar timeline.
Then there is the uncertainty surrounding the US Open, which takes place shortly before Roland Garros. The United States Tennis Association has said their final decision will be made in June. Among their options includes the possibility of relocating the major from New York to Indian Wells.
“I have regular conversations with Andrea Gaudenzi [ATP], Steve Simon [WTA] and David Haggerty [ITF]; a call is also planned next week to see how we have advanced. We are working well together, but it is still a bit early to precisely determine the schedule for the clay court sequence.” Guidicelli concluded.
The French Open is currently set to take place between September 20-October 4, but there are ongoing discussions that it could be delayed by a further week.
