The tournament has not ruled out playing without spectators and expects to make a decision about the event in mid-JuneThe US Open is still working on holding the 2020 edition and, in an update posted to its website on April 30, says that it has not ruled out running the event with no spectators. The tournament also reiterated the event’s unwillingness to shift the date or the location of the event.
Latest USTA statement on the 2020 US Open. Nothing truly new but very little appetite for shifting dates or moving locations to Indian Wells or anywhere else. But still not ruled out entirely pic.twitter.com/pNkX32D2LA
— Christopher Clarey (@christophclarey) May 1, 2020
“We understand that there is a great deal of speculation regarding the USTA’s planning for the 2020 US Open,” the statement, posted on USOpen.org, read. “We would like to clarify that while we are exploring every possibility around the US Open, the potential to shift the event location or date is not at the forefront at this point in time.”
In an interview with Bill Simons of Inside Tennis on the same day as the press release, USTA CEO Michael Dowse seemed to take a posture that was more open to contingency plans than he did in when he last held a conference call for reporters in mid-April.
“There’s too much speculation–we’ll know so much more in June," he said. "In reality it’s certainly possible to play without fans. No formal decision has been made about Indian Wells. Whatever we do, we’ll have to do it in alignment with the owners of Indian Wells, and the ATP and the WTA. These days the most energy is on social distancing.”
In reality, it's simply too early in the United State's recovery phase from the Coronaviris pandemic to know.
The tournament expects to make an announcement on the status of the tournament in a six-to-eight week time frame.
“The USTA's goal is to hold the 2020 US Open in New York on its currently scheduled dates,” the statement read. “In fact, our plans to stage the US Open on our scheduled dates at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in New York with fans, remain on-going. However, we recognize that we are all facing an uncertain and rapidly changing environment regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, and therefore have been aggressively modeling many other contingencies, including scenarios with no fans.”
