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While several tennis players have given their reactions to the sudden decision to delay the Roland Garros Grand Slam event, two tennis figures in French tennis provided their views to the WeLoveTennis website. Retired ATP pro Olivier Delaitre, part of the winning Davis Cup team in 1991 and who is now part of the staff of the All In Academy, commented on the decision, “Roland-Garros is a Grand Slam tournament, it's better to be played.
Keeping it up to date was no longer possible, I understand that. On the sporting side, I want to say that the players will be in rhythm. A week is short, of course, but there was a time when there were only 15 days between Roland Garros and Wimbledon.
In the end, but this is only my view, but it is the least bad solution. " Meanwhile, Denis Naegelen, the Tournament Director of the WTA Strasbourg International event, which is generally a Roland-Garros warm-up event which takes place the week before the Parisian Grand Slam.
was aware that there was a possibility that the clay court Grand Slam may be delayed even though he was not questioned on the topic: "This idea existed, anyway from the time when Japan wants to maintain the Olympic Games (July 24 to August 9), Roland-Garros did not have much choice but to postpone the tournament when at the beginning of this discussion, the choice of the date of the Games had been considered.
To say that the WTA was fully consulted, I am not sure since Roland-Garros is part of the Grand Slam tournaments, it is one of the four pillars of the history of tennis. " Meanwhile, the WTA CEO Steve Simon gave a brief reaction to the New York Times saying, “It came out of nowhere, for us.
We are very surprised ”. Raul Zurutuza, the Tournament Director of the Acapulco event which hosts a combined ATP & WTA event, was also unhappy about the decision. “Roland Garros' decision to postpone the tournament to September is, from my point of view, treacherous and selfish and only demonstrates the disdain they have towards the other tournaments on the tour and also visibly to the players, because even they were not consulted."