The Association for Tennis Professionals (ATP) and Women's Tennis Association (WTA) have further extended the suspension of professional tennis till June 7 in the wake of deadly coronavirus outbreak that has spread all over the world and termed 'pandemic' by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
In a joint statement released by the ATP and WTA, the world's tennis governing bodies confirmed that all the tournaments scheduled to take place in the spring clay-court swing will not take place as per schedule.
"After careful consideration, and due to the continuing outbreak of COVID-19, all ATP and WTA tournaments in the Spring clay-court swing will not be held as scheduled," the official statement said.
The tournaments which will be impacted by the decision are the combined ATP/WTA tournaments in Madrid and Rome, along with the WTA events in Strasbourg and Rabat and ATP events in Munich, Estoril, Geneva and Lyon.
"The professional tennis season is now suspended through June 7, 2020, including the ATP Challenger Tour and ITF World Tennis Tour. At this time, tournaments taking place from June 8, 2020 onwards are still planning to go ahead as per the published schedule," the statement added.
The ATP and WTA further confirmed that the men's and women's rankings will also remain frozen throughout this period.
"The challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic to professional tennis demand greater collaboration than ever from everyone in the tennis community, in order for the sport to move forward collectively in the best interest of players, tournaments and fans," the statement said.
The decision came after the French Open tournament, which was originally scheduled to take place from May 18 to June 7, has now been pushed to September.
The virus outbreak, which was first reported in December 2019 from Wuhan city of China, has so far claimed the lives of nearly 9,000 people and has affected more than 2,00,000 persons globally.
