ATP tour suspended due to the Covid-19 pandemic

[PKBasu]

The ATP tour has announced an immediate suspension of the ATP tour. This means that the Nur-Sultan and Potchefstroom Challengers will not be able to be completed. Indian Wells, Miami Masters, Monte Carlo Masters, Barcelona Open are cancelled.
The ATP will announce later (perhaps in the next couple of days) what all this implies for ATP rankings. Prajnesh has a lot of points to defend at Indian Wells and Miami.
ITF tournaments will not be able to award ATP points during this period of suspension of the ATP tour. That means that the ongoing M15 tournament in Kolkata and next week's one in Gurugram will not be able to offer ATP points

[jayakris]

And AITA just suspended all domestic events too -- https://www.firstpost.com/health/all-in ... 46041.html

[PKBasu]

The ATP is cancelling the Challengers currently being played. Very unfair to the players who are still alive there.

I wonder whether the ITF will do the same for tournaments being played this week, including the first Futures tournament in India for more than a year...

[jayakris]

Here is th ITF decision that just came out - ITF Announcement Postponement of All Events Until 20 April

Matches currently in progress - including those subject to a rain delay - may be completed today but cannot be carried over until tomorrow. Any matches yet to be started today will be postponed.

So, it is done. Everybody goes home now. Postponement here means cancellation of this week's events, as the players can't back to these locations at a later date. I hope they may give the players the points for the rounds they won... Maybe.

[sameerph]

This is from twitter account of ATP challenger tour -

There is currently a rain delay in Potchefstroom. Matches in progress will attempt to be finished by the end of the day.

All players will receive ranking points and prize money for matches completed during the week.

So, at least Sid will get points for his 1 win and our players in Kolkata futures should also get points for their wins.

But, now everyone goes on a compulsory leave till at least 6 weeks.

[arjun2761]

Wonder why they cancelled the lower levels of the tour? I wonder if they thought the travel disruptions were going to make it hard to continue.

Understand why the bigger/main tour events (such as IW) was cancelled as those would be gatherings of relatively large number of people (and in the US many of them would be older folks). The main tour players are also better able to handle the disruption when compared to some of the lower tour players who are surviving on a week-to-week basis.

[jayakris]

Yes, it must be based on travel considerations too. The world is really grinding to a halt, as far as mobility is concerned. Flights getting cancelled everywhere.

Though the spectator to spectator transmission is much more at big events, the chance for virus transmission from player to player may be somewhat similar at big and smaller events, as there are similar number of players in the club houses, and they share similar kind of benches and workout equipment and everything. The tennis club houses could easily become virus petri dishes actually, quite fast.

[sameerph]

ATP/WTA have not yet announced what will be the effect on rankings. Will the players keep dropping points every week with no opportunity to gain back those ? Will they keep updating the rankings every week ? Hope they provide clarity on this soon.

[jayakris]

I guess point drop dates can be simply moved forward. If there is a 2 month break, then every point drop date during that 2 month period will move forward by 2 months. I think that will take care of that issue.

[arjun2761]

One option would be to do nothing since it would impact everyone in a similar manner although the rankings will be more distorted than usual without the current performances.

The ones coming back from injury with PRs would need extensions on the time period to use their PRs.

[RohitG]

India has three varying cases itself. Prajnesh had 160+ points to defend in this period while Sumit not even a fraction. Yuki was aiming to make a comeback with his PR for the clay season.

[prasen9]

The question is how reliable is a part year ranking? If you want a full year's ranking, then you just freeze the rankings and not change it. Then, when the tour starts, you drop a week and add a week.

The other option would be to just keep dropping the weeks and not adding new points. That would mean that part year ranking is fine but performances more than a year ago does not matter with respect to predicting whatever you want to predict.

[Sin Hombre]

TBH I do not see how this 6-weeks suspension does not get longer. Europe is in meltdown and things are only going to get worse.

[Omkara]

My bigger worry is what are we going to do? No sports no discussion.... Many of us won't have any work to do.... No score to update... No fights...

[Sin Hombre]

I work in markets, and have been averaging 14-16 hours/day for the past many weeks in times of unprecedented volatility. Wouldn't mind if we shut down markets for a couple of weeks and let everyone take a breather.