First modification: 29/12/2020 – 19:02
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Los Angeles (AFP)
The Indian Wells tournament, the first major world tennis event to be canceled in 2020, will also not be played on the scheduled March dates due to the coronavirus and is seeking a new location on the 2021 calendar.
The announcement of the postponement coincided with the publication on Tuesday of the men’s tennis circuit (ATP) calendar for the first quarter of 2021.
The program is still conditioned by the health context linked to the covid-19 pandemic, which has already caused the postponement or cancellation of numerous tournaments in 2020, including Wimbledon.
The most prominent absence at the start of next year is that of Indian Wells, traditionally the first Masters 1000 of the ATP season.
Its organizers confirmed on Tuesday that the tournament “will not be held from March 8 to 21, 2021 as planned.”
“The tournament is proactively working with the ATP and WTA circuits, as well as the title sponsor, BNP Paribas, to confirm dates later in the year to host the event,” the organization said in a statement.
The decision was made in consultation with local health authorities and the state of California, where confinement and curfew orders remain in effect due to the rebound of the virus.
In California, the most populous state in the country with some 40 million inhabitants, more than 24,000 people have died and more than 2.1 million have been infected with covid-19, according to official figures.
In March 2020, Indian Wells was the first major competition to be canceled in the United States. That same week the NBA also suspended its regular season, which led to a break in the rest of the sports leagues and the cancellation of the Miami Tennis Open.
The suspension of Indian Wells was announced just one day before the start of the games, with most of the players from the qualifying rounds already present in this town located in a desert area of California, about 200 kilometers east of Los Angeles. .
In the tournament, which distributes some 17 million dollars in prizes, the best tennis players in the world usually participate. In the finals of the 2019 edition, Austrian Dominic Thiem beat Swiss Roger Federer, in the men’s category, and Canadian Bianca Andreescu beat German Angelique Kerber, in the women’s category.
– ATP adjusts its calendar –
The ATP published on Tuesday the schedule for the eight weeks following the Australian Open, the first annual Grand Slam that this season will start on February 8, three weeks after its usual date.
The first ATP 500 of 2021 will take place in Rotterdam (Netherlands) from February 27 to March 7 and the first Masters 1000 will be in Miami (United States), from March 22 to April 4.
After the Australian Open, the ATP circuit will chain two ATP 250 tournaments in Córdoba (Argentina, February 20-28) and Montpellier (February 21-28), in the week prior to the ATP 500 in Rotterdam.
Buenos Aires will host a tournament in parallel to Rotterdam and in March the ATP 250 events in Doha, Santiago and Marseille will take place, as well as the ATP 500 events in Acapulco and Dubai.
The ATP said the remainder of the planned 2021 schedule, beginning with the dirt season in week 14, “remains unchanged at this time.”
The circuit is also studying adding specific tournaments to fill free spaces on the calendar.
© 2020 AFP
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