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COVID-19 cancels Wimbledon

Published:Thursday | April 2, 2020 | 12:13 AM
Japan’s Naomi Osaka reacts in disappointment as she plays Kazakstan’s Yulia Putintseva in a Women’s singles match during day one of the Wimbledon Tennis Championships in London, Monday, July 1, 2019.
(AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
Japan’s Naomi Osaka reacts in disappointment as she plays Kazakstan’s Yulia Putintseva in a Women’s singles match during day one of the Wimbledon Tennis Championships in London, Monday, July 1, 2019.

WIMBLEDON WAS cancelled yesterday because of the coronavirus pandemic, the first time since World War II that the oldest Grand Slam tennis tournament won’t be played.

Britain imposed a nationwide lockdown just over a week ago, and the All England Club announced after a two-day emergency meeting that the event it refers to simply as ‘The Championships’ is being scrapped for 2020. That hadn’t happened since 1945.

Wimbledon was scheduled to be played on the club’s grass courts on the outskirts of London from June 29 to July 12.

Instead, the next edition of the tournament will be June 28 to July 11, 2021.

Also on Wednesday, the Association of Tennis Professionals and Women’s Tennis Association announced that the men’s and women’s professional tours would be suspended until at least July 13, bringing the number of elite tennis tournaments affected by the coronavirus to more than 30. The top tours already had been on hold through to June 7. Lower-level events on the Challenger Tour and ITF World Tennis Tour are also called off through to mid-July now.

World war breaks

Wimbledon was first held in 1877 and has been contested every year since, with the exception of two stretches: from 1915-18 because of World War I, and from 1940-45 because of World War II.

“It has weighed heavily on our minds that the staging of The Championships has only been interrupted previously by World Wars,” club Chairman Ian Hewitt said in a news release, “but, following thorough and extensive consideration of all scenarios, we believe that it is a measure of this global crisis that it is ultimately the right decision to cancel this year’s Championships, and instead, concentrate on how we can use the breadth of Wimbledon’s resources to help those in our local communities and beyond.”

Wimbledon joins the growing list of sports events called off completely in 2020 because of the COVID-19 outbreak.

That includes the Tokyo Olympics – which have been pushed back 12 months – and the NCAA men’s and women’s college basketball tournaments.

Wimbledon is the first major tennis championship wiped out this year because of the coronavirus. The start of the French Open was postponed from late May to late September.

AP