LONDON: The ATP Tour and International Tennis Federation (ITF) have extended their suspensions of professional tennis until July 31 due to the Covid-19 pandemic, they said yesterday.
The ATP and WTA announced in April that they were suspending all tournaments until July 13, with the WTA saying yesterday it had further suspended four events due to be held in July.
The WTA added that it will provide an update next month on the tournaments scheduled for the latter half of July.
The WTA Rogers Cup, which had been scheduled for Aug. 7-16 in Montreal, had already been postponed to 2021 after Quebec government prohibited holding events until Aug. 31, 2020.
ATP events in Hamburg, Bastad, Newport, Los Cabos, Gstaad, Umag, Atlanta and Kitzbuhel will not go ahead as scheduled, while WTA events in Bastad, Lausanne, Bucharest and Jurmala scheduled for July will not be held.
“Due to continued uncertainties surrounding the Covid-19 pandemic, we regret to announce our decision to extend the suspension of the Tour,” ATP chairman Andrea Gaudenzi said.
The WTA said that it would make a decision on tournaments in Palermo and Karlsruhe, which were to begin on July 20 and 28 respectively, when the announcements to its revised calendar are made next month.
The ITF said all events – including ITF Juniors, Seniors, Beach Tennis Tour and the men’s and women’s ITF World Tennis Tour – would be suspended.
However, the ITF suspensions will not affect any of the Grand Slams with Wimbledon having already been cancelled.
The US Open is scheduled to begin on Aug. 24 while the postponed French Open is now due to start on Sept. 20.