Calendar An icon of a desk calendar. Cancel An icon of a circle with a diagonal line across. Caret An icon of a block arrow pointing to the right. Email An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of the Facebook "f" mark. Google An icon of the Google "G" mark. Linked In An icon of the Linked In "in" mark. Logout An icon representing logout. Profile An icon that resembles human head and shoulders. Telephone An icon of a traditional telephone receiver. Tick An icon of a tick mark. Is Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes. Is Not Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes with a diagonal line through it. Pause Icon A two-lined pause icon for stopping interactions. Quote Mark A opening quote mark. Quote Mark A closing quote mark. Arrow An icon of an arrow. Folder An icon of a paper folder. Breaking An icon of an exclamation mark on a circular background. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Caret An icon of a caret arrow. Clock An icon of a clock face. Close An icon of the an X shape. Close Icon An icon used to represent where to interact to collapse or dismiss a component Comment An icon of a speech bubble. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Ellipsis An icon of 3 horizontal dots. Envelope An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Home An icon of a house. Instagram An icon of the Instagram logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. Magnifying Glass An icon of a magnifying glass. Search Icon A magnifying glass icon that is used to represent the function of searching. Menu An icon of 3 horizontal lines. Hamburger Menu Icon An icon used to represent a collapsed menu. Next An icon of an arrow pointing to the right. Notice An explanation mark centred inside a circle. Previous An icon of an arrow pointing to the left. Rating An icon of a star. Tag An icon of a tag. Twitter An icon of the Twitter logo. Video Camera An icon of a video camera shape. Speech Bubble Icon A icon displaying a speech bubble WhatsApp An icon of the WhatsApp logo. Information An icon of an information logo. Plus A mathematical 'plus' symbol. Duration An icon indicating Time. Success Tick An icon of a green tick. Success Tick Timeout An icon of a greyed out success tick. Loading Spinner An icon of a loading spinner. Facebook Messenger An icon of the facebook messenger app logo. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Facebook Messenger An icon of the Twitter app logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. WhatsApp Messenger An icon of the Whatsapp messenger app logo. Email An icon of an mail envelope. Copy link A decentered black square over a white square.

Judy Murray: Tennis cannot let this terrible virus win game, set and match

© Adam Davy/PA Wirewimbledon cancelled
Andy Murray winning Wimbledon in 2016

After weeks of speculation and rumour, the All England Lawn Tennis Club officially announced the cancellation of this summer’s Wimbledon Championships.

While it’s incredibly disappointing to lose one of the highlights of the sporting calendar, the decision didn’t come as a surprise – once the Tokyo 2020 Olympics was moved to next year, I knew Wimbledon would inevitably follow suit.

Major global sporting events bring together players, officials, volunteers, administrators, media, contractors and, of course, fans from all around the world.

As such, they present a huge risk to public health and that has to be everybody’s priority right now.

It’s the first time Wimbledon has been cancelled since the Second World War, and during those war years it was used as a farmyard for growing crops and breeding pigs, rabbits, geese, ducks, hens and donkeys.

In the last few weeks there was speculation that Wimbledon might follow the lead of the French Open and postpone until later in the year.

But postponement was always going to be impossible for Wimbledon.

For a start, grass is a living surface and, in our climate, the courts are only playable at a certain time of the year. And if you wait until autumn, there is less daylight and more chance of poor weather conditions – it is an outdoor event, after all.

Rather than trying to postpone, rearrange and cram the back end of the year with tournaments, it seems to me to make more sense to almost write-off 2020, restarting in January with a clean slate.

For the foreseeable future, there will be lots of travel restrictions and I imagine players and officials will be reluctant to visit certain countries for fear of the virus still being at large, therefore, until there is a vaccine, it could take significantly longer to get The Tour back on track.

So, in this really tough time for players, coaches and administrators alike, it’s good to see that some of international tennis’s governing bodies have started to provide support where it’s needed. It was announced late on Friday the Lawn Tennis Association, in consultation with Tennis Scotland and Tennis Wales, are using grants and interest-free loans to put aside £20 million for venues, coaches and officials affected by the pandemic.

Focused on protecting the sport at grassroots level, the funding has also been put in place to support lower-ranked professional tennis players who are responsible for all of their own training and competition costs and depend on limited tournament prize money to pursue their goals in the sport. What’s more, the Women’s Tennis Association is also in discussions to give their full members $2,500 every month.

When an entire season is wiped out, this support is vital, otherwise we could find that players on the first rungs of the professional ladder as well as local clubs and coaches go out of business, so it’s fantastic to see both of these governing bodies leading the way.