"It would be unwise to call it quits now"
Monday 11 May 2020 11:29, UK
Despite the growing possibility of a total wipeout of professional tennis this year due to the coronavirus pandemic, ATP Tour chief Andrea Gaudenzi is refusing to give up.
The tennis season was suspended in early March due to the pandemic and the hiatus will continue at least until mid-July with many countries in lockdown to contain the virus.
Wimbledon has been cancelled and the French Open postponed from its usual May start to September, while the status of the US Open, scheduled to take place in late August, remains unclear.
"It would be unwise to call it quits now," Gaudenzi said. "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 Tour is working on a time frame of six to eight weeks to decide on tournaments.
"We have set a deadline of May 15 for the tournaments in July, post Wimbledon," said the Italian, who reached a career-high singles ranking of 18. "And June 1 for the tournaments in August. So we are, in principle, dealing it on I would say six to eight weeks in advance in time for making a decision. Longer than that, it would be foolish to make decisions in my opinion."
The United States Tennis Association (USTA) is in charge of the US Open, scheduled to run from August 31 to September 13 in New York.
"Their announcement might be a little bit later, we don't know," Gaudenzi said. "Once we get to the beginning of June, we will probably know more about the US summer."
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