Todd Martin: 'We need to make a decision that helps us to have a sustainable future'

The United States Tennis Association (USTA) released a statement last Thursday confirming its intention to organize the US Open at Flushing Meadows with doors open on the originally scheduled dates. However, in the last few days the hypothesis that the last Slam of the season may be moved to Indian Wells due to the difficult situation in New York City.

Former US Open finalist Todd Martin suspects this year’s tournament in New York may be cancelled. “I don’t imagine it is possible,” Martin told Tennis365. “I served on the USTA board for six years and while there is always a way to consider putting on a different event, when you are talking about a massive core of your revenue stream going away (without spectators) it’s going to be tough.

Also, you don’t know what the impact would be on sponsorship, as they expect a lot of hospitality for their clients when they sponsor the event, so there is a lot of revenue there that will be lost. That is before you get to thinking about how you bring an international player into a tennis centre that is currently being used as a temporary hospital and how do you then get them back out of New York? How do you secure them and protect all of them when they share such confined spaces? The locker room at the US Open is massive, but it is no big enough.

There is just so much to understand and plan for and I hope they can do it at some point because I’d love to see some tennis and see our sport rise to the occasion, but we have to make the most practical decision for health and safety. We also need to make a decision that helps us to have a sustainable future and one stand-alone tournament does not lead us in that direction" - he added.

from Tennis World USA https://ift.tt/2W3QjEX