The Laver Cup organisers have reacted with surprise over French Open’s postponement to September 20 given it will now clash with the former.
Less than a few hours after the French Open organisers announced the tournament stood cancelled from its original third week of May schedule because of the uncertainty around the coronavirus outbreak. However, their plan to shift the competition to one week after the completion of the US Open in September brings with it, its own complications.
For now, the two-week French Open clashing with a plethora of ATP and WTA tournaments, not to mention the Laver Cup, which is a tournament organised by Roger Federer and a few others.
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Apart from the Laver Cup, there are nine other ATP and WTA tournaments which could get affected by this rescheduling from the Roland-Garros authorities. These include the Metz Open, St. Petersburg Open, Chengdu Open, Sofia Open and Zhuhai Open on the ATP circuit and Guangzhou Open, Seoul Open, Tokyo Open and the Wuhan Open on WTA.
For now, Laver Cup has responded to the change in schedule on its official Twitter handle. They said the announcement has come as a surprise given the Laver Cup has already sold out the tickets to their tournament which will begin on September 25 and played on till September 27.
The tweet also went on to indicate the call to force the French Open schedule to what has been proposed sounded questionable and the Laver Cup organisers would do everything possible to adhere to their own previous schedule.
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Laver Cup statement on schedule. pic.twitter.com/wMWUVOnhtz
— Laver Cup (@LaverCup) March 18, 2020
And it’s not just the Laver Cup organiers who were left in the dark with the announcement. Even the players looked like they had no clue about what was in store.
Former US Open and Australian Open winner Naomi Osaka expressed her surprise with an “excusez moi???”
Argentina’s Diego Schwartzman, who had earlier panned the ATP tour for not taking the players in confidence after the cancellation of the Indian Wells Masters, continued his criticism of the lack of proper communication.
He said: “Once again … we found out on Twitter.”
Robin Haase, a former tennis player and ATP Player Council member also exhorted all stakeholders to work together, saying, “In tough times like these communication and working together are as important as ever.” Even the US Open, which isn’t directly affected by this decision tweeted about the need for all those involved in the sport to work together in these trying times.
While they did not directly criticise the French Open postponement decision, they did call out for the need to not take any calls unilaterally.
An update on the 2020 US Open. pic.twitter.com/YfhnsKdvBD
— US Open Tennis (@usopen) March 17, 2020
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