WASHINGTON, May 6, 2020 (by Michael Dickens)

World No. 2 Rafael Nadal isn’t optimistic about playing tennis again this year. At age 33, the Spanish native who is at home in Porto Cristo, Mallorca, realizes that losing a year from his tennis life isn’t an easy thing to forget. “My feeling – and I say it sadly, I won’t lie to you – is that we’re losing a year of our lives. And at 33, 34 years-old, that is more valuable than at 20, when you have a lot more (years) ahead.”

Nadal sat for a Skype interview with Spanish-language daily newspaper El País, released on Tuesday, where he discussed the ravages of the COVID-19 pandemic and its effect on Spain as well as his own career.

The 19-time Grand Slam champion Nadal was asked about his chances of playing again this year. “I hope so, but I don’t think so unfortunately,” he said. “I would take being ready for 2021. I’m more concerned with the Australian Open than what happens later this year. I see 2020 as practically lost.”

When Nadal, who is the reigning French Open and US Open champion, was asked whether he would choose to play the US Open or Roland Garros, which because of the coronavirus lockdown of the pro tennis tours and subsequent unilateral moving of the French Open to a late September starting date soon after the completion of the US Open, he said: “It’s all hypothetical, I don’t think it will be like that.”

Speaking about his home country of Spain, Nadal expressed: “A very tough economic and social situation is coming, in which many people are going to suffer. Many are going to lose their jobs and help from all sectors, labor and business, the government … We must all be in solidarity.

“The crisis has overwhelmed us all, but we are a great country.”

Rafa Nadal: “Viene una situación económica y social muy dura, en la que va a sufrir mucha gente. Muchos van a perder sus empleos y se debe ayudar desde todos los sectores, laborales y empresariales, el Gobierno… Todos debemos ser solidarios” https://t.co/f6RrceJDK2

— EL PAÍS (@el_pais) May 5, 2020

Todd Martin: Putting US Open together may prove too much

Todd Martin, chief executive of the International Tennis Hall of Fame, told Tennis365 earlier this week he suspects this year’s US Open may need to be cancelled. He suggested that the logistics required to stage a two-week Grand Slam in lieu of the novel coronavirus pandemic may prove too much for the U.S. Tennis Association (USTA) to go forward.

Martin, a former World No. 4 who reached 1999 US Open during his playing career, said that staging the US Open without spectators may not be a practical option.

“I don’t imagine it is possible,” said Martin, who is the tournament director of the International Tennis Hall of Fame tournament in Newport, Rhode Island. “I served on the USTA board for six years and while there is always a way to consider putting on a different event, when you are talking about a massive core of your revenue stream going away (without spectators) it’s going to be tough.

“Also, you don’t know what the impact would be on sponsorship, as they expect a lot of hospitality for their clients when they sponsor the event, so there is a lot of revenue there that will be lost.

“That is before you get to thinking about how you bring an international player into a tennis center that is currently being used as a temporary hospital and how do you then get them back out of New York? How do you secure them and protect all of them when they share such confined spaces? The locker room at the US Open is massive, but it is not big enough.

“There is just so much to understand and plan for and I hope they can do it at some point because I’d love to see some tennis and see our sport rise to the occasion, but we have to make the most practical decision for health and safety.