Game, set, match to Wimbledon despite stunning cancellation as a result of coronavirus pandemic
How the world’s greatest tennis tournament continues to lead the sport in its most troubled hours, while the 2020 cancellation leaves Roger Federer and Serena Williams in indefinite limbo.
Tennis
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Revered as the world’s pre-eminent tennis tournament — and among a tiny elite of truly iconic international sporting events — Wimbledon did exactly what was expected of it with a historic cancellation.
Unlike others, it leads.
Unlike the predatory, disruptive of now reviled French Open officials, the All-England Club took a broad, mature and worldly view as it shelved tournament plans for the first time since 1945.
Granted, that decision would have been eased by the comfort of insurance against a global pandemic.
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But, just as the Augusta Masters is a global sporting colossus, the notion of a calendar without Wimbledon remains jarring — even when cancellation was widely expected.
Predictably, player lament followed the decision, few more poignant than Roger Federer’s devastation and Serena Williams’ shaken response.
Of all the current players, Federer and Williams have notionally more to lose than any other.
Federer, winner of eight Wimbledon crowns, and Williams, owner of seven All-England Club titles, will both be on the cusp of their 40th birthdays when the 2021 tournament starts.
While each has made an art form of defying the ravages of age, there are no guarantees either will be around 16 months.
Federer is currently recovering from knee surgery.
The Swiss magician’s capacity, though, to excel when fresh makes him an enduring threat in any circumstance.
Williams, for all her determination and ambition, is yet to regain grand slam-winning form since becoming a mother in 2017.
An extended break now for the American might be a blessing with the opportunity to prepare specifically for another tilt at Margaret Court’s grand slam record.
In the short-term, Novak Djokovic and Simona Halep will be deprived of Wimbledon’s most cherished tradition — the honour of playing the first match on centre court on the first two days of the tournament.
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As defending champions from 2019, the pair will receive that privilege in 2021 — assuming grand slam normality has returned.
In the interim, as with every other sport on the planet, it’s a waiting game.
Wimbledon has made an informed, measured and early move.
Soon, it will be the US Open’s turn.
Further down the track, the Australian Open might have to address the unpalatable challenges it is already assessing.
As for the French Open, it has lost the respect and co-operation of the majority of tournaments — not to mention players — with its venal opportunism in unilaterally plumping itself in September timeslot.