The Italian government reversed course on Friday, saying that 1,000 fans will be allowed to attend the semifinals and finals of the Internazionali BNL d’Italia. It had previously been mandated that there would be no fans at the Foro Italico, not unlike the case with the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center for the Cincinnati Masters and the U.S. Open.
“(Up to) 1,000 spectators will be able to attend open-air sports events, starting with the semifinals of the Italian Open tennis tournament,” said Italy’s minister of sports, Vincenzo Spadafora.
He added that the rules on physical distancing and the use of facemasks “will have to be scrupulously respected.”
This decision in Rome comes one day after the French Tennis Federation announced that attendance at the upcoming French Open would be reduced from 11,500 fans per day to 5,000 due to the ongoing spread of COVID-19 in the country. At Roland Garros, the crowd is allowed only on the three show courts: Philippe Chatrier, Suzanne Lenglen, and Simonne Mathieu.
thoughts?
They finally listened to me 🙂 I used to say 20% of capacity filled with fans should be more than okay.
It seems a lot of countries have decided that trying to live with the virus is better than shutting things down. Both France and Spain are in the middle of virus spikes that are by some measures worse than they were months ago, but it now doesn’t seem to matter.
Personally, I think it’s unfair to a lot of working class people, notably nurses and other low paid health care workers, who are bearing the brunt of this disease. In my opinion, if they’re going to play tennis, they should do it without fans.
Good point. They shouldn’t be serving for the same amount of money and more effort on their shoulders.
But I also feel the other side of the coin has some merits. The more we hide from this virus, the more we depend on it and the consequences of closing the economy, are in my opinion coming with more devastating effects compared to the effects of being exposed to the virus more openly.
Good decision IMO. Having no spectators is excessive.
Spectators are a major part of the game, more than most people realise. If they arent going to have spectators then they shouldn’t run the event at all that’s how important spectators are to the game of ‘professional’ tennis.
But circumstances are a factor. It was unfortunate timing for the US with the the massive 2nd wave of cases and the upcoming election etc. There was no option for flexibility on the issue but I feel Europe is in a slightly different situation.
Plus Nadal has a major pull in Europe and I don’t think he would be too keen to play these events if there was no spectators so the organisers make a lot of their decisions around him.
Rome was always going to have spectators but they probably decided to publicly announce it days before the finals to reduce media attention and backlash.
Nadal is a show pony, an entertainer. What he says goes.