‘Resuming the tour now is unfair to all players’
Rafael Nadal believes resuming the tennis tour before all travel restrictions are lifted worldwide would be unfair to the players who will not be able to make it to tournaments.
In a press conference conducted online with media on Thursday, the Spaniard was asked if the circuit should restart if there was one country in the world where players still could not travel from.
“I think we have a worldwide tour. My feeling is we need to be clear, “Nadal said. “We need to be responsible, we need to be sending strong messages and we need to be a positive example for society.
“We need to understand that we are suffering unprecedented situations, and my feeling is we need to come back when all the players from all the countries are able to travel under safe circumstances.
“If not, in my personal opinion, we will come back and I probably will play, but my feeling will be that we are not being 100 per cent correct. And I want to see my sport 100 per cent fair and correct, especially under these circumstances.”
Tennis is suspended until at least July 31. Organisers of the US Open and Roland Garros – the USTA and FFT – are still hoping to staging their tournaments later this year but Nadal is skeptical.
“I don’t know if we will be playing tennis again this year or not, that’s something that, today, is not worrying me much, honestly.
“What really worries me is coming back to normal life, and coming back to a healthy life and a healthy situation for most of the people,” said the world No 2.
The defending champion in New York as well as Paris, Nadal started practicing again two weeks ago – but only for a couple of times per week and not exceeding 90 minutes per session.
The USTA are considering all possible scenarios for the US Open, including staging it behind closed doors and potentially limiting players to traveling to the tournament with just one member of their team.
“It’s not the ideal situation. If you ask me today if I want to travel to New York to play a tennis tournament, I will say, ‘No, I will not’.
“But in a couple of months, I don’t know how the situation is going to improve, hopefully it’s going to improve the right way.
“I’m sure that the people who are organising the event, the USTA, want a safe event. The same as the FFT. I am confident that they will make the right decisions in the right moment.”
Nadal, who turned 34 on Wednesday, has been following the protests in US over the murder of a black citizen George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer.
A Mallorca native of Spain, the 19-time Grand Slam champion posted an image of a black square with no caption, on his social media in observation of ‘#blackouttuesday’.
Nadal was asked for his thoughts on what can be done to eradicate racism in sport, whether high-profile sports stars should use their social platforms to call out any racism and if he believes it’s time for more black former athletes in positions of power across the major sporting bodies to do more.
“I think it’s a very long conversation and it’s a difficult situation to answer right now in a question, we don’t have enough time to talk about this problem,” Nadal said.
“But of course, all the people who want a peaceful world, we are against racism, we are against poverty, we are against all terrible stuff that is happening in this world. When you see all these disasters on the streets, my feeling is that’s not the way to protest or to… I don’t know, I don’t like… that’s not a good example either.”
Nadal warned that “violence creates disasters” and described the situation in the States as “ugly”.
“Of course, the situation is critical but I really believe strongly in people and I really believe that we will be able to fix the problems. Like everything, it takes time; all the improvements, it takes time but we are getting there in all ways ... to everybody having the same opportunities, to everybody having the same rights, in terms of being protected.
“Of course, it’s not enough, we need to keep working hard to make this world a better place.
“Violence and pandemics like this today, create a difficult climate for the world. It’s important to stay calm, to respect everyone and live together in peace, that’s the main thing. I respect every single opinion and every single thing that avoids violence, because violence creates disasters.”