TORONTO: Due to the coronavirus pandemic and following the measures imposed by various government officials and the ATP, Tennis Canada announced on Wednesday the postponement of the Rogers Cup presented by National Bank in Toronto.
The tournament, which was scheduled to take place from August 8 to 16, will now take place from August 7 to 15, 2021. This postponement means that Toronto will host the men’s event in 2021.
The measures announced by the City of Toronto on May 15 do not allow Tennis Canada to organize a competition in front of spectators. In fact, the city had already indicated that it would not issue permits for events that welcome more than 25,000 people until August 31, a position that Tennis Canada fully supports.
The Montreal Rogers Cup event had already been postponed to 2021 following the announcement made by the Government of Quebec on April 11 prohibiting the holding of festivals and events until August 31, 2020.
In recent weeks, Tennis Canada has carefully studied the possibility of holding a closed-door Rogers Cup presented by National Bank. Despite the ongoing de-confinement taking place in Ontario, this scenario continues to present several risks and obstacles, including the responsibility to ensure everyone’s health and safety, the complexity of the federal travel law, the financial repercussions and the strain on public health. After careful consideration, Tennis Canada decided that it was preferable to dismiss this idea.
“Organizing a closed-door event is complex and requires certain important health and operational protocols to be put in place,” stated Gavin Ziv, managing director of the Rogers Cup in Toronto. “We estimated that to organize and broadcast such a tournament, we would require having up to 450 people on-site. The safety of these people during the two weeks of the event would have been a concern for Tennis Canada and in the current context, the level of risk would have remained high, especially for a sport like tennis where athletes comes from all parts of the world. In addition, at this time, the federal law relating to access to our country and mandatory quarantine would require players to arrive in Canada well before the start of the tournament, which made things much more difficult.”
The financial repercussions were also a great source of concern for Tennis Canada.
“After having already absorbed a loss of $17 Million in 2020, Tennis Canada cannot afford to increase this deficit,” stated Michael Downey, president and CEO of Tennis Canada. “As of today, there is no guarantee that a closed-door tournament would significantly mitigate those losses. Furthermore, knowing that we are unable to hold the women’s edition of the Rogers Cup, this goes against our precious support model for professional men’s and women’s tennis in Canada.”
- Log in to post comments