Russian tennis chief says 2020 Fed Cup, Davis Cup are unlikely to run this year

MOSCOW, June 25. /TASS, Andrey Kartashov/. The 2020 Federation Cup and the Davis Cup are unlikely to be organized this year, Shamil Tarpishchev, the president of the Russian Tennis Federation (RTF), told TASS on Thursday. Organizers of the Federation Cup announced on March 11 that the final round of the tournament, which was scheduled to be held in Budapest the next month, had been postponed indefinitely due to the ongoing global spread of the novel coronavirus. The 2020 Davis Cup finals are scheduled to be hosted by the Spanish capital of Madrid on November 23-29. "It is in the authority of the ITF [the International Tennis Federation] to make decisions on the organization of [the Davis Cup and Fed Cup] tennis tournaments, but it says nothing at the moment," Tarpishchev said. "My personal opinion is that the tournaments are highly unlikely to take place this year," the RTF president continued. "But we will see how the situation develops as it is hard now to give predictions." COVID-19 In late December 2019, Chinese officials notified the World Health Organization (WHO) about the outbreak of a previously unknown pneumonia in the city of Wuhan, in central China. Since then, cases of the novel coronavirus — named COVID-19 by the WHO — have been reported in every corner of the globe, including Russia. On March 11, 2020, the WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic. According to the latest statistics, over 9,542,400 people have been infected worldwide and more than 485,200 deaths have been reported. In addition, so far, over 5,186,600 individuals have recovered from the illness across the globe. To date, 613,994 coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Russia, with 375,164 patients having recovered from the disease. Russia’s latest data indicates 8,605 fatalities nationwide. Earlier, the Russian government set up an Internet hotline to keep the public updated on the coronavirus situation. Read more