Women’s Tennis World Tour: The Maharashtra State Lawn Tennis Association on Thursday informed that the upcoming two $25,000 events scheduled to be held in Deccan Gymkhana and Navi Mumbai will have no crowd and the players and officials will have to be in the bio-bubble throughout the tournament.
The decision has been made after a mutual agreement between the state government and the International Tennis Federation (ITF).
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Women’s Tennis World Tour: ITF to host events in Navi Mumbai and Pune behind closed doors, bio-bubbles for players and officials
“The public will not be allowed. And we have to create a bubble for the players, the staff and all the officials involved in the tournament,” Sunder Iyer, honorary secretary of the Maharashtra State Lawn Tennis Association, said.
“Myself and Anil Dhupar (All India Tennis Association secretary) had a meeting with the ITF on Monday and we were able to address all their concerns. It was quite a challenge, we have revived a dead man,” he added.
With the protocols in place, the players and officials entering the tournament will have to be doubly vaccinated and should provide a negative RT-PCR test report before the start and undergo rapid antigen tests every day.
Women’s Tennis World Tour: ITF to host events in Navi Mumbai and Pune behind closed doors, bio-bubbles for players and officials
There is an added exception for the members of the Deccan Gymkhana as they will be allowed to attend the event from a designated area separate from that of the players.
The players and others concerned will have to follow a four-day protocol in which they will have separate accommodation. They will be allowed to move out of the bubble only after they provide a negative RT-PCR report on the fourth day.
“We are happy we salvaged the tournaments which were about to be cancelled. The ITF’s concern was that the government guidelines in place did not make for reasonable conditions to play,” Iyer said.
“The tournaments have entries from Belgium, the Netherlands, the UK, Germany and Croatia and others, so it is a good spread (of overseas players).
“We were able to convince the ITF because most of the players (foreigners and Indians) are already in India to participate in the Tennis Premier League (in Mumbai) or having played the last two weeks (ITF events) in Bengaluru and Solapur,” he explained.
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