ITF World Tennis Tour to resume in early-August

• Tennis News
• ATP Tennis

The ITF has announced that women will be able to compete on the ITF World Tennis Tour events from August 3, while the men's events will continue from August 17. There won't be restrictions as both events will include singles qualifying, main draw singles and doubles rounds.

"The International Tennis Federation has today announced that ITF World Tennis Tour will resume from 3 August for the women’s events and 17 August for the men’s events and both will include singles qualifying, main draw singles and doubles rounds.

This follows the announcements made today by the ATP, WTA, USTA and FFT regarding the resumption of the tours and the staging of the US Open and Roland Garros," the ITF said in a statement released. "The ITF is currently finalising a provisional calendar of ITF World Tennis Tour events from 3 August to 27 September, which will be available on the ITF website."

The ITF is keen on staging as many events as possible

The lower-ranked players -- who compete mostly on the ITF World Tennis Tour -- have been the hardest hit players during the coronavirus pandemic.

The majority of the lower-ranked can't go for a few weeks without competing, let alone several months. They will be desperate to play as much events as possible and earn as much as money as possible. But the safety of players comes at first place.

"While the ITF is keen to see as many tournaments scheduled as possible in order to maximise playing opportunities for athletes around the world, we want to ensure the health and safety of the athletes. The decision for an event to be held will remain at the discretion of individual tournaments to determine if it is feasible for their event to go ahead, and with the appropriate health, safety and integrity infrastructure in place.

Tournaments will be played without spectators, unless local or national government regulations explicitly permit fans to attend sporting events," the ITF noted in their statement. "As with the ATP and WTA provisional calendars, the ITF World Tennis Tour calendar is subject to change.

The ITF expects that approximately 80 per cent of ITF World Tennis Tour events that would normally have been scheduled during the August-September period will be played this year and anticipates that more nations will apply to host tournaments as restrictions ease in those countries." "Ranking points have been frozen since 16 March 2020.

The ITF continues to discuss with the ATP and WTA Tours the most appropriate and fair reintroduction of ranking points across World Tennis Tour events."