Andy Murray: 'I would be surprised if they were back playing sport by September'

Three-time Grand Slam champion Andy Murray believes he may have been infected with Covid-19 last month, according to an interview with CNN presenter Christina Macfarlane, but has now recovered and feels strong enough to return to the court if and when he will resume his competitive activity.

The French Open was postponed from its May-June date to September 20 - October 4, but the Scottish thinks it could still be in doubt.

“I would definitely play on the clay if it goes ahead. I’m a bit sceptical whether it will,” he told CNN. “I would imagine tennis would be one of the last sports to get back to normality because you’ve obviously got players and coaches and teams coming from all over the world into one area. I would be surprised if they were back playing sport by September-time.

You have to feel like the whole world is working normally again and travelling normally before tennis would go back, especially the major competitions. If you took the French Open, let's say things in Europe have improved, but there are certain countries that might still have issues. If you then have a tournament where people or players from a certain continent or countries are not allowed to come in to compete. I think the tournament loses.”

The former World number 1 has also called on funding in the sport to be distributed fairly to help the players below the top bracket in the world: "Players ranked 250-300 in the world, it's going to be really, really challenging for them," said Murray, currently ranked 129th. And I think in the last few years, there has been some improvements and some changes, but probably not enough.

Sometimes you see the prize money check for the winner of the grand slams. And it's like, I don't know what it is exactly, but something like $4 million. And could that money be used better and spent elsewhere in the earlier rounds or the qualifying draws or maybe used to grow some of the smaller events?"

from Tennis World USA https://ift.tt/351ODyO