Cuomo Announces Support of U.S. Open in New York

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced Tuesday that the United States Open would be held as originally scheduled but without spectators at the U.S.T.A. Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Queens, approving a plan by the United States Tennis Association to salvage the Grand Slam tournament, one of the biggest sporting events in New York.

“It will be held without fans, but we can watch it on TV, and I’ll take that,” the governor said.

The Open is scheduled for Aug. 31 to Sept. 13. It will be preceded by the Western & Southern Open, a combined men’s and women’s tournament that is usually held in Mason, Ohio, earlier in August that will be moved to New York this year to centralize operations, manage costs and limit player travel. The Western & Southern Open will also be played without spectators.

The extraordinary doubleheader already had the backing of the leaders of the men’s and women’s tennis tours, which have been looking for a way to restart the sport during the coronavirus pandemic while also managing the misgivings of top players who have expressed concerns about safety and travel restrictions. The majority of professional tennis players are Europeans, and the U.S. Open’s new guidelines are likely to curtail players’ movements in New York and limit the size of their entourages.

“We recognize the tremendous responsibility of hosting one of the first global sporting events in these challenging times, and we will do so in the safest manner possible, mitigating all potential risks,” Mike Dowse, the new chief executive of the U.S.T.A., said in a statement. “We now can give fans around the world the chance to watch tennis’s top athletes compete for a U.S. Open title, and we can showcase tennis as the ideal social distancing sport.”

It is unlikely that all of tennis’s top players will choose to play, which could spark debate about whether this year’s Open deserves an asterisk.

Novak Djokovic of Serbia, the men’s No. 1 and a three-time U.S. Open champion, has criticized the proposed restrictions on players as “extreme” and expressed doubts about playing, although he has yet to make a decision. Simona Halep of Romania, the No. 2 women’s player, has made it clear that she is highly unlikely to play. She is training on red clay in Romania to prepare for the French Open, the postponed Grand Slam event that is scheduled to follow the U.S. Open in late September.

But much could change in the two and a half months before the U.S. Open is scheduled to begin, just as much has changed in the last two and a half months. The U.S.T.A.’s plan to hold the Open was widely considered far-fetched when New York was an epicenter of the pandemic. But as the governor made clear again on Tuesday, that is no longer the case.

“Our rate of transmission is the lowest in the United States, having been the highest at one point,” he said, while continuing to urge caution from the public.

“You have to stay smart, and you have to stay responsible,” he said.

The absence of spectators will certainly be a financial hit for the U.S.T.A. More than 700,000 fans attended the 2019 U.S. Open, and the loss of revenue will include ticket sales, on-site hospitality and concessions. But the organization still has the support of its primary sponsors and ESPN, which pays more than $70 million annually in rights fees mainly to televise the tournament.