No major financial impact from Wimbledon cancellation

Wimbledon's cancellation due to the COVID-19 pandemic this year will have no major financial impact on British tennis, outgoing All England club Chief Executive Richard Lewis has said.

The grass-court Grand Slam was scheduled to start on Monday but was canceled for the first time since World War II in April.

The All England Lawn Tennis Club (AELTC) said its spending plans would not have to be curtailed.

“It won't be severely impacted. If you have to cancel, it's great to have insurance,” said Lewis, who will step down as the CEO next month.

“We're still in a very good position, we're financially very stable. British tennis is going to be pretty well protected.”

However, Wimbledon would not have similar insurance cover in place next year, he added.

“That's impossible in the current climate,” he said. “When I started in 2012, there were some signs that things were not insurable, because of communicable diseases that had taken place, like Sars and swine flu.

“In the immediate aftermath you can't get insurance, but fairly soon after that you can start to get insurance again, the market returns.

“But just because we've made one claim, it won't affect us in the long term.”

The US Open is going ahead as scheduled from the end of August while the French Open has moved to the end of September from May and Sally Bolton, who will succeed Lewis, said the AELTC would learn all they can from the tournaments.

“We've got the US Open and Roland Garros being staged later this year and we will be looking closely at what they do, working with the constraints they find themselves under and learning what we can,” said Bolton.

Murray: Revised schedule not safe for players

Andy Murray took issue with the ATP's revised calendar on Saturday, claiming that it's not safe for players who will be forced to skip major events due to the tight schedule.

The ATP Tour, like a number of sports, has been suspended since March due to the coronavirus pandemic. It is slated to restart on August 14 with the Citi Open in Washington DC, with the Western & Southern Open (August 22) and US Open (August 31) close behind.

The clay-court swing will begin on September 8 in Kitzbuhel, Austria with Masters tournaments in Madrid and Rome beginning on September 13 and 20, respectively. The French Open is slated to begin on September 27.

“It's not safe for players to go from the semifinals or final in New York... and then play in Madrid at altitude on clay when they haven't competed for a long time,” Murray told reporters. “You're going to have the potential where a lot of top players are not competing at many of the biggest events.”

World No. 1 Novak Djokovic and No. 2 Rafael Nadal have also voiced concerns.

Murray, a three-time Grand Slam champion, intimated that he will skip the Western & Southern Open to prepare for the US Open.

“I would rather play Washington and miss the event the week before at the US Open if they all go ahead,” he said.

The Western & Southern Open is typically in Cincinnati but was moved to New York this year to accommodate scheduling.

Murray, 33, won the US Open in 2012 and Wimbledon in 2013 and 2016. He also won Olympic gold medals in 2012 and 2016.

Overall, Murray has won 46 career singles titles, including nine in 2016 when he climbed to No. 1. (Reuters)