French Open 2020: The game with risk
The organizers of the French Open have reduced the number of admitted visitors almost every day. For good reason. From Sunday, 1,000 fans should be able to attend the 2020 French Open every day.
by Jörg Allmeroth
last edit: Sep 25, 2020, 04:54 pm
Numbers are everything, even in tennis. It is always calculated and calculated. It's about top values, records. About speeds, percentages.
But if everything is no longer the way it used to be, then tennis suddenly becomes about completely different numbers. And when you look at these numbers, the soaring Corona numbers, you get a very uneasy feeling about the Grand Slam competition, which starts this weekend in the hotspot Paris - the French Open 2020, the major competition that the pandemic hurled into autumn.
What else would you talk about when you looked ahead to the grueling slides in the red sand? On the incomparable record of Rafael Nadal , who has only lost two of his 95 games at the Roland Garros Stadium since his debut in 2005 - and who could now face the 13th title coup? On the mission of Serena Williams , who is still chasing the all-time record of 24 Grand Slam single titles?
Paris hit hard by the pandemic
All of this and much more will definitely play a role and be a topic of conversation for the next two weeks. But there is a big shadow over this tournament, and it is the others, the gloomy Corona numbers, that cause concern and raise doubts about how useful it all is in times of a global and national health crisis. Because these are also the French Open 2020: A game with the risk in France, which has been badly hit by the pandemic, and its capital Paris.
When the organizers of the French Open announced in the spring, soon after the original event date at the end of May / beginning of June, that they wanted to allow 20,000 spectators a day on the facility in western Paris in autumn, some in the industry shook their heads in amazement. On the other hand, the number of newly infected people at the time seemed to allow a somewhat more offensive concept, often in the three-digit range for the whole country. However, it was also clear that the desired 20,000 visitors had something to do with the precarious financial situation of the organizer, the French tennis association FFT. The massive investments in recent years, especially for the construction of a Center Court roof, had torn deep holes in the budget.
In the meantime, the number 20,000 seems completely out of date, as if it had always been just a utopia. Because the situation in France has changed, and not for the better. Between Wednesday and Thursday of this week alone, more than 16,000 new infections were reported to the authorities, a sad peak in the Corona era - far more than the 7,578 new infections that marked the peak of the “first wave” on March 31. And this number was also reported shortly before the first serves in the main field of the French Open: In the capital Paris, 20 percent of the planned operations are to be canceled from the weekend in order to be prepared for the possible delivery of more corona intensive care patients.
Rejection to the lobbyists
A few weeks ago, many in the tennis world voiced their concerns about hosting the US Open, even though New York had got the infection rate under control. Before the French Open, comparatively little can be heard from the field of players, although the entire Grand Slam construction, including the so-called "bubble", seems much less secure. Curiously, the professionals will secretly breathe a sigh of relief that the organizers had to move away from their steep spectator plans bit by bit. The 20,000 fans initially grew to 11,500, who were to be spread over three separate zones on the Roland Garros terrain. Then the organizers around tournament boss Guy Forget had to obey the instructions of the government authorities two more times - over 5,000 daily visitors, only on the Center Court, it went down to the now official 1,000 fans. So it will de facto also be a ghost tournament, with a defiant residual decoration of visitors who can hardly create a mood.
The first corona cases had already occurred in the qualification, the first exclusions from the tournament, and the first skirmishes about the significance of the series tests. What is to come in the next two weeks, like everything in these times, is unpredictable. The risk of other players or their followers becoming infected and thus triggering quarantine measures with serious consequences is by no means absurd. The danger is, according to the former top player and recognized TV expert Mary Carillo (USA), "much greater than at the US Open". The security protocol in Paris is much more lax than in New York, according to Carillo, and the situation is already more threatening.
Prime Minister Jean Castex had rejected any exception rules for the tennis tournament on Thursday, it was also a rejection of all lobbyists who wanted to obtain special Grand Slam rights with the central government. The French Open should know for themselves, Castex was quoted as saying, should know for themselves whether the tournament was sensible and should take place under the restricted conditions.