The head of the WTA Tour has admitted that he is unsure himself if China will allow any tennis tournaments to take place this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Steve Simon has said he believes a clearer picture of the situation will emerge within the next two weeks in what will be a critical decision for women’s tennis. Under the revised WTA calendar, seven events have been scheduled to take place in China, including the season-ending WTA Finals. Doubts over those events started after China’s General Administration of Sport (GAS), which is the highest sporting body in the country, recommended that no international sporting events take place in 2020 unless they are related to the Olympics.
The proposal from GAS is part of efforts to control and prevent outbreaks of COVID-19 in the country where the virus originated from. However, the WTA remains optimistic that the recommendation can be adjusted for some of their events to take place. Saying that no final decision has been made.
“I think we’ll know next two weeks whether we’ll be able to play in China or not,” Simon told The National.
“We certainly hope that we do. We’ve had conversations with the governmental entities within China and they’re obviously looking at a much bigger picture than just tennis, which we have to respect and we do respect. I don’t know whether we’ll be there or not, I think it’s 50-50 right now.”
Despite the positive thinking, a fresh blow has been dealt to tennis events hoping to be hosted in the country’s capital of Beijing. On Tuesday the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Sports issued an updated notice saying low risk areas are allowed to have up to 500 people attend sporting events. Any more has to be reviewed by the local government. However, the notice goes on to say that ‘no other international sports events will be held except for the test events of the Beijing Winter Olympic Games in 2020.’ Interestingly the wording of the statement says the staging of no international events is based on ‘requirements’ as opposed to what was originally assumed to be a recommendation.
Should these guidelines remain unchanged, the China Open set to start on October 12th will be scrapped. The event is classed as a premier event and had a prize money pool of $8,285,274 in 2019.
Should the worse case happen and no Chinese WTA events take place in 2020, only three tournaments are currently on the calendar from October onwards. Meanwhile, the ATP Tour is yet to publish their planned calendar for the final quarter of this season.
