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World No. 56 Feliciano Lopez has criticized the decision of the Spanish government with regards to de-escalation process in relation to sports. Lopez uploaded a picture on his social media account which shows a photograph of a group of people crowded together on a beach in Barcelona, without any kind of social distancing, accompanied with the word allowed.
Alongside that, there is another picture of two players playing on a tennis court, separated by just over eight meters and accompanied by the word forbidden. In Spain, tennis players can only train again from Monday 11th May if their communities, provinces or geographical areas pass to phase 1 of the de-escalation.
If the areas are in Phase 0, they are not allowed to resume playing tennis on a court. It will not be the case of places such as Barcelona, Madrid, Valencia or Alicante . Due to this, a majority of the Spanish players, with the exception of Rafael Nadal (Mallorca) and Carla Suaréz (Canary Islands), will not be able to start resuming play on a tennis court for another week atleast.
World No. 1 Novak Djokovic, who is in Marbella, is also in the same situation as that area remains in Phase 0. Nadal and Djokovic had mistakenly returned to the courts last week under the assumption that tennis was permitted but after learning that it was not, the players did not get back to the courts again during the week.
Lopez, who is also the Tournament Director of the Mutua Madrid Open, is currently in Madrid without his coach Marc López, who is confined to Rubí (Barcelona).
🎪 pic.twitter.com/pEd9wlkpd6 — Feliciano López (@feliciano_lopez) May 10, 2020