New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo gave the go-ahead Tuesday for the US Open tennis tournament to be held in his state starting in late August—but without spectators—as part of the reopening from shutdowns caused by the pandemic, the AP reports. "You can watch it on TV, and I’ll take that,” Cuomo said at his daily briefing in Albany. Now that the US Tennis Association's proposal to hold its marquee event has been accepted—including a "bubble" setup with designated hotels, limited player entourages and a facility closed to the hundreds of thousands of people who usually attend the US Open—the key question becomes: Who actually will end up competing on the blue hard courts in Flushing Meadows from Aug. 31 to Sept. 13?
Some of the sport's top names, including defending US Open men's champion Rafael Nadal, along with No. 1-ranked players Novak Djokovic and Ash Barty, have expressed reservations about heading somewhere that was a hot spot for the COVID-19 outbreak. Others expressed an eagerness to return to action: Both the ATP and WTA tours have been suspended since early March because of the virus. The US Open normally is the fourth and final Grand Slam tournament of each season but would be the second major of 2020, following the Australian Open, which concluded in early February. The start of the clay-court French Open was postponed from May and currently is scheduled to begin a week after the US Open ends. Wimbledon was canceled altogether for the first time since 1945.
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