The best women’s tennis player in the world has decided to pull out of the 2020 U.S. Open according to Jill Martin of CNN on Thursday. Ashleigh Barty of Brisbane, Australia, does not want to put her health or her team’s health at risk by travelling to the United States at the moment.
The second grand slam tennis tournament of 2020 is to start August 31. The state of New York has been decimated with coronavirus. There have been 442, 060 cases of coronavirus in New York, 109, 271 active cases, and 32, 734 deaths.
Meanwhile, the Australian government is still closing its borders due to coronavirus, and Barty would have needed to apply for special permission to leave the country. That was not a risk she was willing to take at this time.
Barty will also not play in the Western and Southern Open either. That tournament normally takes place in Cincinnati, but will be in New York this year, and be one week before the U.S. Open.
It was an outstanding 2019 for Barty as she won her first grand slam singles title. She defeated Marketa Vondrousova of the Czech Republic 6-1, 6-3 at the final of the French Open. Barty also won the Miami Open, the Birmingham Classic in England leading up to Wimbledon, and the WTA Finals in Shenzhen, China. The fact that Barty has been able to win on all three tennis surfaces in three different continents in 2019 was also significant.
Then in 2020, Barty won the first WTA event of her career in her home country of Australia. She defeated Dayana Yastremska 6-2, 7-5 in the final of Adelaide. Then later in January, Barty then delivered the finest result of her career at the Australian Open as she reached the semifinals. However, Barty lost 7-6, 7-5 to the eventual champion, Sofia Kenin of the United States.
Barty is only the second women’s tennis player from Australia to ever be ranked first in the world. The first was Evonne Goolagong Cawley of Griffith, who was number one in 1976.
