New York: Nick Kyrgios slammed the ATP for pushing on with the 2020 US Open despite the coronavirus situation in the country and the social unrest that has followed the death of George Floyd.
‘The ATP is trying to make the US Open go ahead. Selfish with everything going on at the moment. Obviously Covid, but also with the riots, together we need to overcome these challenges before tennis returns in my opinion,’ tweeted the Australian star on Thursday.
The ATP and the United States Tennis Association (USTA) are considering numerous possibilities with the aim of ensuring that the US Open takes place on the dates that were originally alloted for the Grand Slam.
The USTA said that its top goal’ is to ensure the US Open is held on the scheduled dates and it is mulling restricting the access of fans to the tournament venue.
The USTA continues to model many different scenarios regarding the 2020 US Open, said Chris Widmaier, the USTA’s head of communications. Our top goal is to conduct the US Open in New York in our scheduled dates. To that end, we are modeling many potential scenarios which include both limited fans and potentially no fans on site for the event.’
Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal have both expressed their concerns about playing the Grand Slam. While Djokovic said that the rules to follow for participating are very restrictive, Nadal said that he won’t consider it safe to play again until a vaccine is found for COVID-19.