Pretoria, South Africa, 16 March 2020 – Tennis South Africa (TSA) has on Monday announced a suspension of all their tournaments until 20th April following President Cyril Ramaphosa declaring a national state of emergency over the COVID-19 pandemic.
Following Sunday’s announcement and based on discussions with key stakeholders, Tennis South Africa is taking the precautionary measure to postpone all TSA sanctioned events – national, regional and local junior, seniors and wheelchair tennis events scheduled up to and inclusive of the week of April 20th.
The decision aligns with the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) and the International Tennis Federation (ITF)’s six-week suspension of tournaments due to escalating concerns over the health crisis caused by the virus.
This will be reviewed on a weekly basis by the TSA Risk Committee, but no events will take place until at least the week of Monday 20 April.
“We will work closely with our partners and all stakeholders, regional and provincial associations, to determine suitable alternative dates, with the goal of enabling the resumption of playing opportunities across each category as soon as the situation allows,” commented Tennis South Africa CEO Richard Glover.
Glover also announced that all TSA development centres including wheelchair tennis hubs will be closed from Wednesday this week.
“We had to come to a decision to close all our development centres for the safety of our players.
He added that centres will stay closed until safety precautions are in place.
“This was obviously a difficult decision to make but we believe it is in the best interest of the safety and well-being of our players, officials, coaches and everyone associated with our sport. We will continue to monitor this dynamic situation and are also putting safety measures in place.”
“We hope this postponement puts us in the best position to safely host these events at some later date,” Glover continued.
