2020 Western & Southern Open moving from Cincinnati to New York

Arthur Ashe Stadium (David W. Boswell, Wikimedia Commons)

According to Arthur Kapetanakis of www.usopen.org on Wednesday, the 2020 Western & Southern Open is moving from Cincinnati, Ohio to Flushing Meadows, New York. The event, which is also known as the Cincinnati Masters, is part of the ATP Masters 1000 Series and the WTA Premier 5 events, will take place from August 20-28 at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center.

The major reason why the Cincinnati Masters has been moved to New York City, is because there is a belief by the United States Tennis Association that “hosting the two events in one centralized location mitigates risk and allows for one cohesive medical, training and competition environment, with safety measures to be put in place, including testing, mitigation measures, sanitization, and other protocols.” The Western & Southern Open and the U.S. Open immediately thereafter, will not allow any spectators because of coronavirus.

It will now be interesting to see just how many elite tennis players decide to miss the tournaments in New York. The bottom line is that New York is one of the most dangerous places in the world right now when it comes to coronavirus. There are a whopping 409, 113 cases in New York state at this time, with 31, 138 deaths. The number of active cases in New York is also staggering at 290, 976.

One must realize as well that before going to New York, players will also be participating in an event in the coronavirus hot spot of Washington D.C. In this city, there are 9952 cases and 530 deaths.

Then after going to participate in New York, players will then travel to Europe for premier events on clay in Spain and Italy before the French Open. In Italy, there have been 238,011 cases of coronavirus and 34, 561 deaths. In Spain, there have been 292, 655 cases of coronavirus, and 27, 136 deaths. In France, there have been 159, 452 cases and 29, 617 deaths.

Meanwhile, in other tennis news, the 2020 Rogers Cup in Toronto has been cancelled because of coronavirus. The coronavirus statistics are much better in Canada than the United States, but at this time there are strict immigration rules in Canada, which prevent tennis players from entering the country without self-isolating for 14 days.