Top International Players Uneasy on U.S. Open Plan as Decision Nears - The New York Times

A difficult decision became more daunting on Wednesday as American tennis officials intent on staging the United States Open continued to run into stiff resistance from international players.

“We have less than a week to go, so we need to finally finalize what we will do,” said Patrick Galbraith, the president of the United States Tennis Association, as he presented the case for holding this year’s Open to more than 400 players and coaches on a videoconference call with the ATP, the men’s tour.

The tennis tours have been shut down since mid-March because of the coronavirus pandemic, and two Grand Slam events have been affected. Wimbledon was canceled for the first time since 1945 amid World War II, and the French Open was postponed from a late May start until late September.

The U.S. Open, with main draw play scheduled from Aug. 31 to Sept. 13 in New York, would be the next Grand Slam on the schedule. Its leadership has proposed staging the event without spectators and with players, support personnel and officials confined to a so-called bubble world to reduce the risk of infection.

Exceptional measures would include restricting players to a tournament hotel outside Manhattan, imposing a limit of one support team member per player, eliminating singles qualifying and reducing the doubles draws to 24 teams from the usual 64.

“I know this isn’t ideal,” Eric Butorac, a former tour player who is the U.S.T.A.’s director of player relations, said on Wednesday’s call. “The 2019 Open was amazing. I wish we could run it back the same way. However, this is the world we are living in. We believe this is a good plan and believe it is good for the sport. It’s good for the tennis economy, creates jobs for you, for coaches, for commentators, for so many people. And most importantly, this plan keeps you safe.”

Rafael Nadal, last year’s U.S. Open men’s singles champion, was among the players who expressed doubts about the conditions proposed for this year’s tournament. Credit...Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

Nonetheless, some of the game’s leading men’s and women’s players, including Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Simona Halep, have expressed doubts about committing to playing the U.S. Open under those conditions. The five-time U.S. Open champion Roger Federer won’t be available for other reasons: On Wednesday, he announced he would miss whatever remains of the 2020 season after having a second surgery this year on his right knee.

Djokovic, the world’s top-ranked men’s player, called the proposed measures “extreme” in recent interviews with news media in his native Serbia and criticized the limit on the size of personal teams as “impossible.” He said he favored restarting the season in September at European clay-court events, most likely in Madrid or Rome, before the rescheduled French Open.

Halep, ranked No. 2 in women’s singles and already training on clay in Romania, her home country, took a similar tack in an email interview on Wednesday.

“I definitely have strong concerns about going there with those conditions,” she said. “Not only because we’re in the middle of a global pandemic but also because of the risk of travel, potential quarantine and then the changes around the tournament.

“We are used to things operating very differently and it would not be an easy transition at all, particularly on our bodies. I know that financially the tournament and sponsors would like it to run and also that many players are out of jobs right now, but I think it’s a very personal decision we have to make. It’s important to understand that everyone has individual needs and circumstances and we should do what’s best for our personal health and also think long term about our career.”

“I definitely have strong concerns about going there with those conditions,” Simona Halep, the No. 2 ranked women’s singles player, said in an email.Credit...Ahmed Jadallah/Reuters

Butorac said players should not be concerned about having to self-quarantine upon arrival in the United States. “By the time we get to our event, we’re hearing our country will be opened up,” he said.

But Wednesday’s conference call made it clear that some lower-ranked international players do share some of the stars’ concerns about health and travel. There are also concerns about fairness, with the qualifying tournament very likely eliminated and full singles ranking points still expected to be on offer if the U.S. Open goes ahead, even without some of the game’s biggest stars.

Some on Wednesday’s call, including Kei Nishikori of Japan, proposed removing ranking points from the U.S. Open this year: a concept the U.S.T.A. is rejecting because it would transform the Open into a high-priced exhibition and potentially affect lucrative agreements with broadcasters like ESPN.

The U.S.T.A. has also proposed moving the Western & Southern Open, a men’s and women’s event usually held outside Cincinnati, to New York for this year only and staging it without spectators at the U.S.T.A. Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. The move would provide a warm-up tournament for the Open without making international players travel within the United States.

With players not having competed since March, this doubleheader would allow them a chance to play meaningful matches before the U.S. Open, where the men’s singles matches are best of five sets.

Combined prize money for the men for the two tournaments would be $30 million, according to Stacey Allaster, chief executive of the U.S.T.A.’s professional tennis division and the new U.S. Open tournament director. Allaster said $2 million of the U.S. Open total would be set aside as compensation for players who would be affected by the reduced doubles draw and lack of qualifying tournament. She said the U.S.T.A. would give discretion to Andrea Gaudenzi, the chairman of the ATP Tour, and his team on deploying those funds, suggesting they could be used to organize tournaments in Europe or compensate players directly. Because the U.S.T.A. does not own the Western & Southern women’s event, combined prize money was not yet clear.

But the U.S.T.A., cognizant of player concerns also has proposed a Plan B: canceling the Western & Southern Open and instead holding the U.S. Open with qualifying events and a full 64-team doubles draw.

Galbraith said the U.S.T.A. could not put on full versions of both tournaments, adding that if the Western & Southern Open was dropped, men’s compensation for the U.S. Open alone would be “roughly $26 million” (the women would receive the same). That is approximately 95 percent of the 2019 total. When Marin Cilic of Croatia, the 2014 U.S. Open men’s singles champion, suggested that players should receive more prize money given the proposed conditions, Galbraith disagreed.

“We actually are taking out more debt to get this event going,” Galbraith said. “Our revenues are absolutely shattered this year. We just had a cut on Monday of our staff. We laid off 130 people, so we can’t go any higher. We literally can’t. This is it.”

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The U.S.T.A. has rejected the option of trying to move the tournament outside of New York, although the U.S.T.A. has a campus with 100 courts in Orlando, Fla., the area that is preparing to host the N.B.A. and Major League Soccer this summer.

“We have a third scenario, and that is we pack it up and just cancel for 2020, which we really don’t want to do,” Galbraith said.

If the U.S.T.A. does pursue the New York option, the plan will need approval from local and state authorities.

Olivia Lapeyrolerie, a spokeswoman for Mayor Bill de Blasio, said a team of experts from the parks department and the office of citywide events was working with the U.S.T.A. and evaluating its plans. “Our top priority is ensuring the health and safety of New Yorkers,” she said.

In addition, Steven Cohen and Bill Mulrow, two advisers to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, are overseeing the process, creating the potential for the tournament to become another point of conflict in the long-running rivalry between Cuomo and de Blasio.

Galbraith said a decision needed to be made by next week. The U.S.T.A. does not require approval from the men’s and women’s tours to go ahead with the U.S. Open, but Wednesday’s meeting made it clear that they are highly unlikely to get a full-strength field.

That does not sit well with some players, including Danielle Collins, an American ranked 51st on the WTA Tour who was an Australian Open semifinalist in 2019. She was particularly critical of Djokovic, the president of the ATP Player Council.

“He is one of the most influential players of our time, and his reluctance to play could determine whether or not the U.S. Open goes ahead,” she said in an email. “His incredible accomplishments and being the greatest player in the world has given him privileges like having a full staff to support him. The majority of players do not have this luxury.”

Collins said that many players wanted to play and that if strict health and safety protocols were enforced, she would feel “pretty confident” about participating.

“I think it’s important for top players to take a step back and realize that in the grand scheme of things we have it pretty good,” she said. “Everyone else is also making sacrifices, losing their jobs, having to find child care for their children who can’t go to school, etc. If the biggest sacrifice I will have to make in order to get tennis back up and going is only bringing one guest to the site, then I will consider myself very fortunate.”

Matthew Futterman contributed reporting.

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