Wimbledon Tennis Cancelled Until 2021

With the world in the grip of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Wimbledon Tennis Championships have been cancelled for 2020. This is the first cancellation since 1945, during World War II; Wimbledon was also cancelled in 1940-44 due to World War II and 1915-18 because of World War I. The tournament dates back to 1877.

Wimbledon is one of the sport’s four Grand Slam, or major, events. The Australian Open was played in from January 20th-February 2nd; Australia’s first reported Covid-19 case was January 25th. The French Open was scheduled to begin May 24th; that tournament has been postponed until September 20th. The U.S. Open is still scheduled to begin August 24th. The site of the U.S. Open, the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows, New York, near the New York Mets’ Citi Field, is being converted to a temporary hospital to help with New York’s exploding numbers of Covid-19 patients. The All-England Club, which runs Wimbledon, considered postponing but decided to cancel this year’s tournament instead. The major governing bodies of professional tennis–ATA, WTA, and ITF–have cancelled all events through July 13th.

Here’s last year’s Wimbledon Men’s Singles champion, Novak Djokovic, wrapping up his second consecutive and fifth overall Wimbledon, beating eight time champion Roger Federer: