By Saransh Sharma

Today, The All England Lawn Tennis Club (AELTC) announced that The Championships, Wimbledon, has been cancelled in 2020 due to the Coronavirus outbreak. While it was most definitely the right thing to do given the circumstances in our world today, the fans and players are still in utter shock over the announcement. The oldest and greatest tournament in the history of the game has now been cancelled for the first time since World War II. This is the first Grand Slam tournament of the 2020 year to be cancelled, and after Roland Garros announced its postponement, many people believed maybe Wimbledon would too, but there just simply is not enough time in one year to do it all. The decision will have a huge effect on the world of tennis as we see it, and may even affect players going into the 2021 tennis season:

With the Olympics now in 2021, Players Have Less Time to Train

The hardest part for tennis players and all athletes in general is definitely the fact that you cannot train. While you can always workout and stay fit, not being able to have a racquet, get coaching, and just hit tennis balls is something that hurts a player long-term. After such a huge layoff from the game, players will have to spend time getting back into a flow and rhythm of how their daily routines with training and practice goes, and then they have to prepare for tournaments, Grand Slams, and the Olympics. Many players will also be skipping more tournaments than usual in order to represent their country in the Olympics in July of 2021, and with the tennis calendar a month ahead after Australian Open (Roland Garros and Wimbledon are played a month earlier than usual in order to fit the Olympics into the schedule), expect players to be a bit more cautious with their body, while also still trying to get a lot of matches in. 2021 will prove to be the toughest year of many tennis players’ careers.

Rankings Will Change Tremendously Over Wins and Losses

The players will also have to be mindful of how winning and losing can drastically affect the rankings, with those currently being frozen right now due to the Coronavirus indefinitely suspending play for this year. While points won and lost for each win and loss will not change, what will change is how the players play after such a long layoff. Lots of younger and lower-ranked players will have their chances to shine and beat the top players in the world, so keep an eye out for major changes in rankings come 2021. We could see guys like Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal lose their top-2 ranking spots due to the competition in the mens side and how the layoff could affect them, and on the women’s side, where the rankings have not been safe for anyone for years with a lack of repeat women winners in many tournaments, those rankings could be a whole lot different than a year ago.