Tennis news - John Isner fears for ATP tour players with coronavirus decimating the tennis schedule

ByEurosport

Published 05/04/2020 at 13:40 GMT

American John Isner says the suspension of men's tennis due to coronavirus could leave players on the tour financially insecure and calls for player unity.

John Isner

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The entire clay-court season has fallen victim to the outbreak with the French Open now set to take place in late September, while Wimbledon has been called off and the Olympics postponed until 2021.

Isner, a member of the player council for the ATP, fears that plenty of tour players will struggle to continue playing tennis with no events taking place.

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“We are still discussing all of this,” the world number 21 told the New York Times.

“The top players in the world, most of those guys are going to be OK. I personally will be OK, but some people literally rely on a paycheck week after week.

"So the struggling professional tennis players are no different than anyone who has been furloughed or laid off through all of this in any profession.

“What’s always sort of hampered us to try to change things is the fact we’re always playing and always so busy and now we have a lot more time on our hands to assess things,”

I know a lot of people out there speak of unionising. We’ll see if that’s a possibility. If there ever was a situation that could arise, I would imagine it would be right now.