Facing the coronavirus, tennis is in a battle to keep its season alive

There had to be a first domino to fall, a tip of the coming iceberg, and the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells turned out to be it. Unluckily for the event—but perhaps luckily for some fans who would have risked their health by attending it—the coronavirus reached the nearby Coachella Valley in Southern California just as the tournament was about to begin. On Sunday, less then 24 hours before qualifying matches got underway, officials announced that the local Riverside Public Health Department had declared a state of emergency, and that the tournament, “following the guidance of medical professionals, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), and the State of California,” would be canceled for the first time in its 46-year history.

Players, most of whom had already made the trip west and paid for expensive hotel rooms, were predictably stunned and upset. The same was surely true for the thousands of tournament employees and media who planned to work on site over the next two weeks, and the fans who had planned vacations around the event. Judging by social-media responses, many in the tennis world felt that the tournament overreacted. But cancellations like this were inevitable, not just in tennis, but in every sport and every walk of life. Experts say that the coronavirus is at least five times deadlier than the flu; that each person who has it infects between three and four people; and that banning mass gatherings, especially ones that significant numbers of people travel to attend, is one of the few methods we have to slow its spread.

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Indian Wells was the first mass gathering to fall, but it almost surely won’t be the last. The Miami Open is theoretically set to begin in two weeks, but its host city recently canceled two other major area events, the Calle Ocho and Ultra music festivals. Roland Garros is theoretically set to be the host Grand Slam, but France just announced a ban on all assemblies of 1,000 people or more. The fate of the Italian Open in May is obviously in doubt; Italy has already begun staging its sporting events in empty arenas.

Which brings us to the next question: Is there any way for tennis to keep the 2020 season alive? Could the sport follow Italy’s lead and hold its events with no fans in attendance? This once-unthinkable idea has crossed a few minds.

“Just want to share my thoughts on the BNP Paribas Open event being canceled,” Sascha Bajin, the coach of Dayana Yastremska, tweeted on Sunday night. “Was there no chance to have the event without the public, but then just televised?”

According to Steve Simon, the WTA’s chief executive, the possibility was seriously discussed.

“We were supportive of the concept,” Simon told *The New York Times*. “But ultimately the tournament didn’t feel it was in their best interest.”

Jamie Murray on tennis' immediate future:

Even a tournament owned by Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest men, is likely to balk at having to forego all ticket, concession, merchandise and parking revenue. But now that we know that total shutdown is a possibility, can other tournaments find a way to put on their events without spectators, and the money they bring in? Can they be staged for TV alone? Tennis is famously bad at presenting a unified front, or coming together for the greater good, but that’s likely what it will take in this case. Would prize money need to be renegotiated or draw sizes modified? The players, the tours, the tournaments, the TV partners: this is obviously an all-hands-on-deck moment. No one wants to stage any event in front of empty seats, but it may become the norm across the sporting world very soon.

Tennis has gone away before in times of global strife. Wimbledon wasn’t played from 1915 to 1918 because of World War I, or from 1940 to 1945 because of World War II. These next two weeks, as players scramble to find way to make up for their lost revenue, and the rest of us try to find other ways to entertain ourselves, will give us a taste of what life would be like without the sport in our daily lives. The first domino has fallen. Can we find a way to keep the others standing?