Andrew Cuomo, the governor of New York, has given the green light. The US Open of tennis will be held behind closed doors from August 31 to September 13.
“The American Tennis Federation will take extraordinary precautions to protect players and staff, including solid testing, additional cleaning of the venue, additional locker room space, dedicated accommodation and transportation“, he justified on Twitter.
It now remains to convince many major players to play this Grand Slam tournament, long threatened by the coronavirus.
With which tray?
Roger Federer, who has ended his season, will not be there. Not more than Simona Halep. The world number 2 indicated in the Romanian press on Tuesday that she no longer wanted to play outside Europe this year, because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Several players, like the world number 1 Ashleigh Barty, Novak Djokovic, Dominic Thiem, Alexander Zverev or Grigor Dimitrov expressed their reluctance to participate in the American round of the Grand Slam.
Rafael Nadal did not hide his reservations either. “If you told me to go play the US Open today I would tell you no“, he decided in early June.”In a few months, I don’t know. I hope.“
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The @usopen will be held in Queens, NY, without fans from August 31 to September 13.
The USTA will take extraordinary precautions to protect players and staff, including robust testing, additional cleaning, extra locker room space, and dedicated housing & transportation.
— Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) June 16, 2020
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