This doesn’t exactly have anything to do with poker. Actually, it has nothing to do with poker. It doesn’t kind of relate to sports betting, so if we want to pretend this has something to do with gambling, there you are. But regardless, Wimbledon is cancelled. On Wednesday – and this was not an April Fool’s joke – the All England Club (AELTC) and the Committee of Management of The Championships announced that “due to public health concerns linked to the coronavirus epidemic,” there will be no Wimbledon in 2020.
The next time we will see the most prestigious tennis tournament in the world will be June 28th to July 11th, 2021.
Wimbledon was originally scheduled for June 29th, long enough from now that some felt it was still a possibility. Consideration was also made to moving it later in the summer. But with travel restrictions in place both in the UK and worldwide, along with the likelihood that the coronavirus pandemic will still be quite serious even three months from now, it was decided that the tennis tournament had to be pushed to next year.
“….it is the Committee of Management’s view that cancellation of The Championships is the best decision in the interests of public health, and that being able to provide certainty by taking this decision now, rather than in several weeks, is important for everyone involved in tennis and The Championships,” organizers said on Wednesday.
Fans who already purchased tickets will receive refunds as well as the chance to buy tickets for the same day and court for next year.
Ian Hewitt, AELTC Chairman, said:
It has weighed heavily on our minds that the staging of The Championships has only been interrupted previously by World Wars but, following thorough and extensive consideration of all scenarios, we believe that it is a measure of this global crisis that it is ultimately the right decision to cancel this year’s Championships, and instead concentrate on how we can use the breadth of Wimbledon’s resources to help those in our local communities and beyond.
While the world’s best tennis players are naturally disappointed, most likely saw this coming and support the decision.
Last year’s women’s champ, Simona Halep, tweeted, “….we are going through something bigger than tennis and Wimbledon will be back! And it means I have even longer to look forward to defending my title.”
Eight-time Wimbledon winner and arguably the greatest male tennis player of all time, Roger Federer, simply tweeted, “Devastated.”
With the Championships cancelled, Wimbledon is switching to emergency relief mode. It is distributing medical equipment and has offered its facilities to the NHS and London Resilience Partnership. It is also distributing food with a group called city harvest. At the same time, Wimbledon’s charity arm, the Wimbledon Foundation, is working to help local communities during the coronavirus crisis.
There is already virtually no sports going on anywhere in the world right now and with Wimbledon cancelled, the sporting world is barren in the near future. The 2020 Tokyo Olympics were recently postponed until next year, soccer leagues around the world have been suspended, and all college and professional sports leagues in the U.S. have either been cancelled, suspended, or postponed. As such, the sports betting industry is at a standstill right now, with very little on which to place wagers. Even some eSports events have been cancelled, if they were to take place in arenas where social distancing would have been impossible.
