Still unexplained
The hunt for the origins of Covid-19 has for the past four years been a tangled web of politics, power struggles, and international finger-pointing.
The ATP earlier had already declared a six-week suspension of the men’s professional tours due to the escalating health issues caused by the COVID-19.
The Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) and Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) on Wednesday announced that due to the continuing outbreak of the novel coronavirus top-level Tennis will not be returning till at least the second week of June.
Joint Announcement: ATP & @WTA extend suspension of tours.
Due to the continuing outbreak of COVID-19, all ATP and WTA tournaments in the Spring clay-court swing will not be held as scheduled.
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— ATP Tour (@atptour) March 18, 2020
“The professional tennis season is now suspended through 7 June 2020, including the ATP Challenger Tour and ITF World Tennis Tour. At this time, tournaments taking place from 8 June 2020 onwards are still planning to go ahead as per the published schedule,” a statement on the official webiste of ATP read.
The tournaments that will be affected are the ATP/WTA tournaments in Madrid and Rome, along with the WTA events in Strasbourg and Rabat and ATP events in Munich, Estoril, Geneva and Lyon.
As a result of the suspension, it has also been announced that all the ATP and WTA rankings will be frozen throughout the period.
The FedEx ATP Rankings will be frozen throughout this period and until further notice.
— ATP Tour (@atptour) March 18, 2020
The announcement comes days after this year’s second Grand Slam French Open was postponed. Earlier, the Ronald Garros was scheduled to be played between May 18 and June 7,while the new dates will see the clay-court Slam from September 20 to October 4.
Meanwhile, the ATP had already declared a six-week suspension of the men’s professional tours due to the escalating health and safety issues caused by the COVID-19 which has already killed over 8,900 people and infected more than 2,19,000 people worldwide.
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