The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Decision time for Wimbledon 2020
Two-time Wimbledon mixed doubles champion Jamie Murray says he sees no alternative but to cancel this year’s tournament.
The All England Club is holding an emergency board meeting today to discuss the fate of the 2020 Championships, with a cancellation widely expected to be agreed due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The French Open has already been postponed, shoehorned into the schedule in late September, and it will be difficult for Wimbledon to rearrange.
The grasscourt season is only six weeks long and is played at the height of the British summer when daylight hours are at their longest.
For those reasons Murray, who won the 2007 and 2017 mixed doubles titles at SW19, thinks this year’s tournament will be wiped off the calendar, making it the first year since 1945 Wimbledon will not be played.
Asked if he thinks a cancellation is more likely than a postponement, he said: “I think so, I think for them it is difficult to move the tournament back for many reasons, because you are running into other tournaments.
“I think there are meetings today and tomorrow about what their plans are.
“That will give us insight into what that means for our grasscourt season but also the rest of the season going forward after that.”
Murray, 34, has spent much of the last 20 years on the tennis tour, living out of a suitcase.
He added: “I am at home like everyone else. It is different.
“We are used to being on the road all the time, we are in different cities each week and you sort of become institutionalised to it.”