All England club's outgoing Chief Executive Richard Lewis has said that the cancellation of Wimbledon on account of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 will cause no serious financial impact on British Tennis. The Grand Slam that was set to commence on Monday, has been canceled for the first time post World War Two.
"It won't be severely impacted. If you have to cancel, it's great to have insurance. We're still in a very good position, we're financially very stable. British tennis is going to be pretty well protected," Lewis told British media
No Insurance Cover Next Year
The All England Lawn Tennis Club (AELTC) said its spending plans would not have to be curtailed. However, Wimbledon would not have a similar insurance cover in place next year, he added.
"That's impossible in the current climate," he said. "When I started in 2012, there were some signs that things were not insurable, because of communicable diseases that had taken place, like Sars and swine flu.
He went on to add, "In the immediate aftermath you can't get insurance but fairly soon after that you can start to get insurance again, the market returns. So there won't be insurance next year. But just because we've made one claim, it won't affect us in the long term."
French Open To Begin In September
The US Open is going ahead as scheduled from the end of August while the French Open has moved to the end of September from May and Sally Bolton, who will succeed Lewis, said the AELTC would learn all they can from the tournaments.
"We've got the US Open and Roland Garros being staged later this year and we will be looking closely at what they do, working with the constraints they find themselves under and learning what we can," said Bolton.
(With inputs from agencies)
