The Coronavirus pandemic has completely disrupted all the tennis schedules. There are a couple of issues that the tournament organizations need to deal with. First, there are the obvious problems of safety; second, the tournaments need to face how to manage the travel restrictions.
In March, the Roland Garros decided unilaterally to postpone the main draw competition to the 20th of September. That means that there would be only 1 week in between the Us Open and the French Open. The decision was badly slammed by the other organisations especially because of the lack of cooperation with the other governing bodies.
The US Open slams the Roland Garros for “arrogant” rescheduling
The new dates
Fortunately, this time the French Tennis Federation consulted the other organisations and it was announced that new dates may be set for the slam. The French Tennis Federation released the following communicate: “After discussions with the different international tennis authorities (ATP, WTA and ITF) and subject to any health and safety obligations linked to COVID-19. We are currently analyzing the option to slightly modify the dates of Roland-Garros 2020 in order to host the tournament over three weeks, from 21 September to October 11, 2020.”
Postponing the French Open of 1 week will give better opportunities to the players to get ready for the transition from hard to clay courts.
There are still doubts that the French Open and the all 2020 tennis season is resumed. One of the key issues is the finding of a vaccine. However, there are already a couple of human trials that make things possible to have a vaccine as early as September if everything goes well.
https://tonic75.com/2491/pfizer-starts-us-human-trials-of-coronavirus-vaccine-that-could-be-ready-in-september/
