Deprived of cricket, ‘super fan’ makes it to hometown but is stigmatised
USTA said it is keen to host the Slam in New York but will have backups ready
MUMBAI: Sudhir Kumar Gautam is used to attention. For several years now, the thin man with a shaved head and tri-colour body paint has been a permanent fixture at India matches.
But at home now, he has become the subject of attention he does not care for.
At his village in Bihar’s Muzaffarpur, he is seen with mistrust as villagers feel Gautam, recently back from Delhi, could be a Covid-19 risk. “Everyone was scared,” Gautam says, adding he was ordered to get tested. Since he did not show any symptoms at the local health care centre, he was not tested for coronavirus and only ordered to stay in quarantine.
Over the phone, Gautam rattles off the list of matches in the now-defunct cricket calendar he would have attended. “I will definitely go, when matches resume. They may not allow me, but I will try,” he says. “I will contact Sachin (Tendulkar) Sir and he might get me permission through BCCI.”
But he has one worry. “If there’s no crowd, will I be waving the flag alone?”
LOS ANGELES: The United States Tennis Association is pressing ahead with preparations to stage the US Open in New York this year but is “aggressively” drafting alternative plans for the tournament, a spokesman said. With New York the epicentre of the Covid-19 pandemic in the United States, the US Open’s apparently precarious place on the sporting calendar has faced increasing speculation.
Multiple reports have suggested that USTA officials are mulling a possible switch of the August 31-September 13 tournament to either Indian Wells (California) or Orlando (Florida) in an effort to evade the clutches of the pandemic.
However, USTA spokesman Chris Widmaier said in an email to AFP on Thursday that the organisation’s sights remained firmly set on staging the Open at its regular venue and date. “The USTA’s goal is to hold the 2020 US Open in New York on its currently scheduled dates,” Widmaier said, describing planning for the tournament as “ongoing.” “We understand that there is a great deal of speculation regarding USTA’s planning for the 2020 US Open,” he added. “We would like to clarify that while we are exploring every possibility around the US Open, the potential to shift the event location or date is not at the forefront at this point in time.”
Any move from the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center — its home since 1978—would be both unusual and an enormous financial sacrifice for a $400 million tournament that attracted 738,000 fans last year, generated most of USTA’s $161 million in ticket revenue and prompted hundreds of millions more in broader spending in the city on things like hotels and restaurants, the New York Times wrote. Yet as the public health crisis drags on, it becomes more difficult to see a path toward holding the event as originally planned.
Over the weekend, New York City officials floated the idea of using the site of the tournament as a quarantine centre for people who have tested positive for Covid-19.
Last month, a 12-court indoor facility at the tennis center was converted into a temporary 350bed hospital, and another stadium on the grounds was used to prepare and distribute up to 25,000 packages of meals every day for patients, workers and children.
Widmaier said Wednesday that the last patient at the temporary hospital had left and that work to convert the building back into a tennis facility had begun.
Widmaier added, however, that because of the “uncertain and rapidly-changing environment”, USTA had been “aggressively modeling many other contingencies, including scenarios with no fans.”
A final decision on plans for the US Open would be taken next month, in “mid-to-late June”, Widmaier said. “Paramount with all our decisions regarding the US Open will be the health and safety of all those involved, in any capacity, with the tournament,” Widmaier said.
USTA officials are in constant contact with New York State and City agencies regarding the pandemic. Covid-19 has wreaked havoc with the international tennis calendar, which has ground to a standstill since the crisis erupted.
The French Open at Roland Garros has already been postponed until the end of September while Wimbledon has been cancelled. Spanish star Rafael Nadal meanwhile has questioned whether the sport will be able to return this year, describing 2020 as “practically lost” in an interview earlier this month.
The New York Times meanwhile reported on Wednesday that the USTA had not yet held any serious talks with Larry Ellison, the billionaire owner of Indian Wells Tennis Garden about possibly relocating the US Open to the California desert.
The Times reported that the other venue under possible consideration, USTA’s 100-court Orlando training center was problematical as there was no infrastructure to support fans and courts would also need to be wired for live television.