Jamie Murray not holding out hope for Wimbledon postponement

Doubles star Jamie Murray believes it’s doubtful that Wimbledon will be able to postpone their Grand Slam to later in the season.

All England Club officials said on Thursday that an emergency meeting will take place next week, where the status of Wimbledon 2020 will officially be determined.

Currently scheduled between June 29 and July 12, Wimbledon faces a considerable challenge to go ahead as planned, especially with the Tokyo Olympics and the entire clay-court swing abandoned due to the coronavirus crisis.

Already declaring playing behind closed doors isn’t an option, it’s appearing increasingly likely that Wimbledon will have to cancel the tournament this season.

Speaking to BBC Scotland, Murray – a two-time champion at SW19 – said he wasn’t holding out much hope that officials would give Wimbledon the green light to proceed as planned.

“I don’t know how long they could push it back,” Murray said.

“They’re desperate to have their event on, it’s still over three months away and a lot can change in that time.

“For them, optics don’t necessarily look great, I guess, if there’s sporting events all over the world getting cancelled and they’re trying to crack on with things.

“There’s a lot of other stakeholders, a lot of other tournaments to consider. Even things like daylight for the tournament. Once the tournament gets put back, there’s less and less daylight. When you play at Wimbledon normally, you can play until 10 at night.”

Furthermore, due to the nature of grass, it’s practically impossible to stage the tournament later in the year.

Roland Garros has already taken the slot immediately after the U.S. Open, with the clay-court slam now scheduled to start one week after all the action in New York between September 20 and October 4.

ATP, WTA and ITF tennis has been put on hold until June 7 at the earliest, but with COVID-19 still raging uncontrollably across the world, the prospect of international tennis resuming a normal schedule seems very distant at the moment.