When circumstances stopped tennis

This year’s French Open and Wimbledon were postponed to later dates but the US Open remains originally as scheduled on August 24 to September 13.  But things and schedules are wholly dependent on where current situations bring us.

Prior to Mr. Covid’s entry this year, February had some memorable tennis moments.  After 8 years, former world number one Kim Clijsters returned to play in a tour match at the Dubai Tennis Championships, losing to Garbine Muguruza in straight sets.  A week later, Maria Sharapova, the sports unofficial poster girl retired from active play at age 32.

March came and first to surrender to Covid a day before it was set to start was the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells.  A week later, Roland Garros moved the tournament to September and the rest of the tennis world agreed to suspend play until June 8.

In two weeks, 12 indoor tennis courts at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Queens, New York were transformed into a 350-bed supplemental hospital space with 20 intensive care units.  The Arthur Ashe Stadium was utilized to prepare and distribute 25,000 meal packs a day.

The final patient had finally left the temporary hospital facility earlier this month and is now officially closed.  Crews had disassembled and sanitized the area to make it ready for tennis activities.

Aside from Covid, some other world events forced tennis to stop.

World War 1 and World War 2 halted the Davis Cup, Wimbledon and the Australian Championships.  The US Open, then called the US Nationals was not cancelled because New York was far from the action.  At the start of the second World War, the French Open and Wimbledon took a break for six years and the following year, in 1941, the Australian Open followed.

A WTC event was held in Lagos, Nigeria in 1976 when a coup happened and the Nigerian president was assasinated in the middle of the tournament.  Play was halted at gunpoint when soldiers entered the court and shoved guns at players’ backs.  There was evacuation and anxious days followed spent by players huttling between hotels and going thru checkpoints with machine guns pointed at their cars.

Advances in technology and travel had made tennis more global.  There will always be interaction between players, officials, staff and fans and this pandemic had made things difficult not only for tennis and sports in general but likewise in our everyday lives.