New Delhi: Tennis ace Sania Mirza said that she was unsure how the 2020 French Open would fit in the scheduled now that it has become the last Grand Slam of the year. The clay-court Grand Slam has been pushed to September due to the concern over the spread of coronavirus, a decision that was criticised by a number of players because of the fact that there was no consultation with them over it.
“I just think that there’s a lot going (on) in the world right now and everybody has their hands full. Sure, the players should have been informed. I did get an email from the federation but I was asleep then. Once I was up, I saw the email and then the tweet and spoke to a couple of players and they were obviously very irritated because they first found out about it on Twitter,” Sania told ESPN.
“I’m not sure how the French Open is going to fit into the schedule. Hopefully, things blow over and we should be able to play the US swing. But I don’t know how we are going to suddenly play a clay tournament one week after the hard court season.”
Sania said that she “freaked out” when she got to know Indian Wells had been called off.
“I’d finished Fed Cup on Saturday and together with my dad, we left for Indian Wells soon after. An hour after we reached California on Sunday evening, players got an email saying the tournament was cancelled. So I had travelled 20 hours basically for nothing,” she said.
However, she said that it was the right decision to make in hindsight.
“Everybody was in a bit of shock on Monday. No one knew what to do. I freaked out. I was also confused about what was going on. In hindsight, it was the right call. There was just so much uncertainty. Nobody really knew the magnitude of what was happening. Maybe the timing could have been better.”
