David Goffin casts doubts on his participation at the the US Open, which starts on 31st August at Flushing Meadows in New York with no fans. The tournament will have to respect strict social distancing rules.
New York is one of the worst hit areas by the coronavirus pandemic. The number of covid-19 cases is surging in Florida, Arizona, Texas and California.
Goffin is sceptical about travelling to the USA to play the US Open. He is the latest star to cast doubts about participating at the US Open joining Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Simona Halep.
“I would love to go to New York and fit the US Open into my schedule, but I don’t know if we will go at the moment. The cases over there are increasing, so I don’t know if it’s good to go but we will try. We will practice on hard courts in preparation for the Cincinnati Masters and the US Open. At the end of the day I don’t know because it’s not been good but of course the conditions can change. The conditions are really tough with a player plus one or maybe plus two maximum. I am still hesitating. I am not 100 % sure that I will go. You have seen the last few days and weeks that players have picked up the virus. The virus in the tennis world. We don’t know what will happen if there are cases during the tournament. Will it be cancelled ? We would love to hear more details and it will be more clear for us to make a choice”, said Goffin.
Goffin reached three Grand Slam quarter finals at Roland Garros 2016, at the Australian Open 2017 and at Wimbledon 2019 and finished runner-up to Grigor Dimitrov at the 2017 ATP Finals in London. The Belgian player ended the 2019 season in top 20 for the 4th time in the last five seasons. He became the first Belgian player to reach an ATP Masters 1000 final in Cincinnati. He also finished runner-up to Roger Federer in Halle final and advanced to his third Grand Slam quarter final at Wimbledon before losing to eventual champion Novak Djokovic. He reached the US Open fourth round for the third consecutive year. In 2020 Goffin lost to Andrey Rublev in the third round at the Australian Open and advanced to Montpellier semifinal.
