Online
\nParis
\nThe French Open has been postponed by a week in the hope that more spectators will be permitted to attend \u2013 BBC reported on Thursday. The Grand Slam tournament at Roland Garros will now run from 30 May to 13 June with qualifying the week before.
\nFrance is in a third nationwide lockdown amid a surge in coronavirus cases, which president Emmanuel Macron previously said he expected to end in mid-May.
\nThe French Tennis Federation (FFT) said postponing was the \u201cbest solution\u201d.
\n\u201cI am delighted that the discussions with the public authorities, the governing bodies of international tennis, our partners and broadcasters, and the ongoing work with the WTA and ATP, have made it possible for us to postpone the 2021 Roland Garros tournament by a week,\u201d FFT president Gilles Moretton said.
\n\u201cIt will give the health situation more time to improve and should optimise our chances of welcoming spectators at Roland Garros, into our newly-transformed stadium that now covers more than 30 acres.
\n\u201cFor the fans, the players and the atmosphere, the presence of spectators is vital for our tournament, the spring\u2019s most important international sporting event.\u201d
\nIn 2020, the French Open was postponed to the autumn because of the pandemic.
\nRafael Nadal won the men\u2019s singles title – his 13th at Roland Garros – while Polish teenager Iga Swiatek won her first Grand Slam title in front of a crowd of 1,000 fans, which was the maximum permitted at the time.
\nThe 2021 tournament is now due to finish just two weeks before the start of Wimbledon.
\nIts postponement is set to have an impact on the ATP and WTA calendars, with the grass-court season scheduled to start on 7 June with tournaments in s\u2019Hertogenbosch, Stuttgart and Nottingham.
\nThe ATP and WTA governing bodies said in a joint statement they were \u201cworking in consultation with all parties impacted by the postponement\u201d.
\nBritish tennis\u2019 governing body the LTA said: \u201cThe decision to move Roland Garros will obviously create a knock-on effect for the summer grass-court season. We are currently looking at the implications for our events and if we will need to make changes to our calendar.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Online Paris The French Open has been postponed by a week in the hope that more spectators will be permitted to attend \u2013 BBC reported on Thursday. The Grand Slam tournament at Roland Garros will now run from 30 May to 13 June with qualifying the week before. France is in a third nationwide lockdown […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-184953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-sports"],"yoast_head":"\n