The delay of the Australian Open was the latest disruption in a sport that has dealt with plenty of it since March, when professional tennis essentially shut down for five months.

Getting professional tennis back on its feet has been especially challenging because the sport has no central governing body. Instead, a hodgepodge of international, national and local organizations runs the sport. The uncertainty is likely to continue through the first quarter of the year or longer, until coronavirus vaccines are widely distributed in places where major tennis events occur and the danger ebbs.

After the 2020 Australian Open was held as usual, the three other Grand Slam events were upended. Wimbledon was canceled for the first time since World War II. The United States Open started in New York in late August, as scheduled, but without spectators, and most players remained cloistered in a pair of Long Island hotels when they were not competing at the tournament in Queens. The start of the French Open was moved to late September from late May. It took place in front of just a smattering of spectators in cool, blustery conditions.

There was hope that Australia would be able to hold something resembling a normal Grand Slam at the start of 2021. Since the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus crisis a pandemic in March, Australia has put into place some of the world’s strictest measures to prevent outbreaks, and the country has been one of the few coronavirus success stories. Australia has averaged fewer than 10 new cases per day over the past week.

Despite those figures — or perhaps because of them — the government was resistant to bending its rules on overseas travelers to accommodate tennis players, scores of whom would be arriving from virus hot spots, including many communities in the United States and Europe.

Source: New York Times

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