By Tennis Now | Tuesday March 17, 2020
Players react with surprise and frustration to Roland Garros' decision to reschedule the tournament without.
Photo Source: Tennis Now
Roland Garros’ decision to postpone its 2020 staging til September 20th has caused frustration across the tour with players and even WTA CEO Steve Simon saying they were caught by surprise.
The FFT announced on Tuesday that the tournament would move into the time slot that sits just one week after the conclusion of the US Open and during the time period in which Laver Cup sits. There are actually 11 tour-level events scheduled in that two-week time span, including the Laver Cup, which is scheduled in Boston from 25 to 27 September.
It makes for a crowded schedule, and if things continue as they are currently scheduled, it would mean that Roland Garros would begin six days after the US Open final. Of course, there is much work to be done to keep the current tennis schedule intact, with Wimbledon potentially up in the air, and the Olympics also scheduled this summer.
Canada’s Vasek Pospisil, member of the ATP Player Council was the first to take issue with the decision. He complained that the ATP was not consulted in the change and voiced his frustration on Twitter, saying “This is madness. Major announcement by Roland Garros changing the dates to one week after the US Open. No communication with the players or the ATP.. we have ZERO say in this sport” in a tweet that was later deleted.
Posipisil later tweeted: “This is such a difficult time. Everyone is being impacted by this catastrophe. Enhancing communication & working together to find solutions should be the priority. Not going Rogue & making selfish/arrogant decisions to further impact the tour in a negative way.”
Other players simply voiced their surprise, like Japan’s Naomi Osaka:
According to Christopher Clarey of the New York Times, even WTA CEO Simon was caught off guard by the news.
Tennis Channel’s Jon Wertheim says a top pro talked to him and expressed his bitterness, but he wouldn’t identify the player.
What isn’t being talked about a lot is the fact that the players, now desperate for money, will all get a chance to take part in another Grand Slam. Grand Slams are the four beacons of compensation where players make elevated prize money in qualification and in the early round at majors. The majors are the events, whether fair or not, that help the players inside the Top 200 break even or turn a profit, so having the event, whenever it is held, will be a good thing for many tour players.
In the age of social media hot takes, there is always frustration when big news breaks, especially when players, like Pospisil, are not given a say in the decision. We have seen many ATP and WTA players complain of being left out of the decision making process as the tours and tournaments have moved to react to an unprecedented global pandemic.
Diego Schwartzman complained that he had to find out the Roland Garros on Twitter. “Once again, we found out on Twitter,” he tweeted in Spanish.
Schwartzman was also angry to find out that Indian Wells was cancelled on March 8. At the time, he said: "It would be nice if ATP Tour communicate a bit better to the players of a suspension of such a tournament when we are all here ... finding out about social networks or whats app is quite lazy."
Schwartzman certainly has a point, but the fast-moving sweep of the crisis can’t be making it easy for decision makers to wait and ensure that all their employees are informed before they announce to the public.
The fact of the matter is that things are not easy for anybody—in tennis or otherwise right now. Lessons of communications clearly need to be learned and the fallout from the Coronavirus is far from over.
“We have discussions and negotiations between the Grand Slams and the ATP,” Pospisil told Clarey. “We are always trying to make it work for everybody, and they just haven’t consulted the ATP, the players or the other tournaments. It’s just a very selfish move. They are basically doing a power play right now, and it’s quite arrogant.”