Joining the Indian Wells Open, the women’s team event Fed Cup has become the latest tennis tournament to be postponed because of the coronavirus outbreak.
The coronovirus or COVID-19 as it’s called had already pushed the Indian Wells Open organisers into calling off the tournament earlier this week. Now, the ITF has announced the Fed Cup Finals, which was to be played in Budapest in Hungary and the Fed Cup Playoffs which were to be hosted at various venues, will all be played at a later date.
According to a media release, the ITF had formed a COVID-19 Advisory Group, which had been actively looking out for the situation around the spread of this virus, and had been in a direct contact with independent medical and travel advisers along with international and national authorities.
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And based on the information they have received from both, their own group and the Hungarian government, the ITF has taken a call to suspend the two rounds of the Fed Cup; the Finals and the Playoffs. The organisers will now come out with information how fans can opt to take refunds for their tickets.
The press release also said:
The ITF is committed to delivering the Fed Cup Finals in 2020 and is in consultation with key stakeholders, including the Hungarian Government, the Hungarian Tennis Association (HTA) and the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) to find a suitable alternative date for the tournament.
Interestingly, the Fed Cup is also used by the ITF as an Olympics qualifying event. This will now imply the ITF will need to come up with an alternate plan for the same in the year the Tokyo Olympics will be played.
Other than the Finals, even the Playoffs event which acts as a qualifier for next year’s Fed Cup Qualifiers, will need to played at a later date. 16 teams were to go head to head in this competition with eight making it through.
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