Coronavirus Outbreak: Will Wimbledon Be Canceled This Year? Here's An Update

The organizers of Wimbledon reportedly will make a decision next week if tennis’ most prestigious event will take place this year or not amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

The board members are set to have an emergency meeting next week, where the fate of Wimbledon— one of the four Grand Slams in the calendar— will be decided. The tournament this year is due to take place from June 29 to July 12, while Novak Djokovic and Simona Halep are the defending champions in men's and women's singles respectively.

The Rolland Garros, the season’s second Grand Slam, has already postponed its dates from May to September. The other two, the U.S. Open and Australian Open, run in September (before French Open’s proposed new dates), and January, respectively.

The Wimbledon is run by the All England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club, who recently posted an update on their official website stating that since the preparation of Wimbledon is supposed to begin next month, it needs to make a decision whether to go ahead with the ATP major event’s 2020 edition. It also mentioned that both postponement and cancellation were on the cards.

The club explained that it is working with global tennis bodies and other Grand Slams before they take a call while conducting the Championships 2020 have been ruled out. “At this time, based on the advice we have received from the public health authorities, the very short window available to us to stage The Championships due to the nature of our surface suggests that postponement is not without significant risk and difficulty. Playing behind closed doors has been formally ruled out,” the statement read.

“The unprecedented challenge presented by the COVID-19 crisis continues to affect our way of life in ways that we could not have imagined, and our thoughts are with all those affected in the UK and around the world. The single most important consideration is one of public health, and we are determined to act responsibly through the decisions we make. We are working hard to bring certainty to our plans for 2020 and have convened an emergency meeting of the AELTC Main Board for next week, at which a decision will be made,” said the club’s chief exec Richard Lewis.

Many sporting events have been either postponed or canceled this year due to the coronavirus crisis including this summer’s Euro 2020 and the Olympics, which was due to take place from July 24 to Aug. 9 in Japan and was pushed to 2021.