Week 36: Time for the US Open between hopes and fears but without Federer and Nadal

Finally we are all about to start the US Open 2020, an extremely significant and anticipated event, for everything that has happened from March onwards, between hopes and fears. The 140th edition of the American Slam will be a real challenge for New York, a metropolis hit hard during the months of the spread of the global Covid-19 pandemic.

Pandemic that is far from being defeated, but in this phase of coexistence with the virus we will try to stem it with important measures. The Grand Slam board and the USTA have decided to divide the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center bubble into three levels, in order to ensure maximum safety for the players, their staff, the media and the tournament members. It will be a challenge that tennis will have to win in order to return to play with more confidence in the future.

There will obviously be no crowds, just a few scheduled admissions. There won't be many champions, such as Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Simona Halep and Ashleigh Barty, but the spectacle and thrill of experiencing such an anticipated and important event is a great hope.

The US Open and the Challengers of this week

Here is who will be who will not be on the hard-courts of Flushing Meadows: out Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer, Gael Monfils, Fabio Fognini, Stan Wawrinka, Nick Kyrgios, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, Lucas Pouille, Pierre-Hugues Herbert and Nicolas Jarry.

The situation in women's singles is even more dramatic, with the absences of Ashleigh Barty, Simona Halep, Elina Svitolina, Andreescu, Kiki Bertens, Belinda Bencic, Wang Qiang, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, Saisai Zheng, Julia Goerges, Barbora Strycova, Svetlana Kuznetsova, Fiona Ferro, Lin Zhu, Yafan Wang, Anastasia Potapanova and Samantha Stosur.

Among the stars there will be Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray, Stefanos Tsitsipas, Alexander Zverev, Dominic Thiem, Serena Williams, Sofia Kenin, Petra Kvitova and Karolina Pliskova.

This week there will also be two ATP Challengers events: the Prosperita Open (Ostrava, Czech Republic, on clay-courts) and the Internazionali di Tennis del Friuli Venezia Giulia (Cordenons, Italy, on clay-courts).

It will be a decisive week, perhaps the most important that tennis has had in recent years, seven days in which we will better understand what will become of tennis in the near future of coexistence with Covid-19.

from Tennis World USA https://ift.tt/3jwYToN