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HomeShowWimbledon will be canceled, says German tennis official

Wimbledon will be canceled, says German tennis official

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Daily US Times: German Tennis Federation (DTB) vice-president Dirk Hordorff said the Wimbledon tennis championships will be canceled this week due to global coronavirus pandemic.

All England Club (AELTC), the organizer of the tournament called an urgent meeting Wednesday and is expected to make a final decision on the grand slam event, which is set to begin on June 29.

Last week in a statement, the AELTC said it had been evaluating all possible scenarios, including both postponement and cancellation, amid the coronavirus outbreak.

Hordorff, who is also involved in the bodies of the ATP and WTA told the news while talking with the Sky Sports Germany.

”The necessary decisions have already been made there and Wimbledon will decide to cancel next Wednesday. There is no doubt about it. This is necessary in the current situation,” he said.

Explaining the current global situation, including travel restrictions and banned social gatherings, he said: “It is completely unrealistic to imagine that with the travel restrictions that we currently have an international tennis tournament where hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world would travel. That is unthinkable.”

If the Wimbledon tennis championships will be called off, it would be the first time since World War II that the grand slam will not have been staged.

The AELTC did not respond to Mr Hordorff’s comment as it referred to the statement it issued last week.

The French Open has already been pushed back until September, while all professional tennis has been suspended until further notice. The tournament was due to start on May 18.

Sport has been severely impacted across the globe by the coronavirus pandemic.

Last week, the Olympics — set to be held in Tokyo this summer — was postponed.

The decision came after mountains of pressure to delay the Games on Japan and IOC. The event was scheduled to take place from July 24 to August 9, amid the novel coronavirus outbreak.

It was also announced that despite the postponement, the event will still be dubbed Tokyo 2020.

Tokyo 2020 organizing committee and IOC issued a statement today which says: “The IOC president and the Prime Minister of Japan have concluded that the Games … must be rescheduled to a date beyond 2020 but not later than summer 2021, to safeguard the health of the athletes, everybody involved in the Olympic Games and the international community.”

Meanwhile, Italy’s football club Juventus coach Maurizio Sarri and the club’s first-team squad have agreed to give up four months’ wages to help the club manage the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

As the coronavirus pandemic surges across the globe, football of all sorts is currently on hold.

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