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By Matthew Futterman
I was already defeated in March in New York, just five months and a lifetime ago, and tennis leaders in the United States already knew that this year’s US Open would look nothing like what they had experienced, if you can level it.
With much of the world, and especially New York City, recovering from the coronavirus pandemic, they did not know where or when the Open might take place, or whether they would bother to attend an occasion held in the city for more than a hundred years. one of its greatest vital and economically vital festivals.
So Mike Dowse, the newly installed general manager of the United States Tennis Association, combined a team on how to organize the event, triggering a wonderful experiment that can show what foreign sports, as well as New York, can be. able to address the risk to public health.
Players, who begin to arrive in mid-August for a smaller tournament held before the start of the U.S. Open. On Monday, they are usually cloistered at a Long Island hotel, banning sharing a table with friends and preparing to play. in cavernous stadiums without spectators at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center of the USTA in Flushing Meadows Queens.
These athletes, accustomed to being pampered, also act as guinea pigs, monitored through medical experts, leaders of other sports and curious public fitness officers about which general edition can be imagined in the largest city in the country, as it hosts their first main sporting occasion. since the start of the pandemic.
“It’s a pleasure in … once in a generation,” Dowse said in an interview last week. “It’s a chance to be a part of the story.”
It’s also an opportunity to provide a new set of knowledge topics for the world of sports and live events that you’re still looking to figure out how until there’s a vaccine.
“It’s a desirable experiment on the human habit that made me realize that humans are actually social creatures,” said Dr. Bernard Camins, infectious disease specialist at Mount Sinai Health Systems, who pleaded with the United States. in their protocols. “It’s hard to tell other people to stay away from your friends that you haven’t noticed in five months, or that I tell them you can’t say ‘hello’, hug them or shake hands or even be within two feet of them if you’re not dressed in a mask.
Dr. Camins said the arrival of athletes from around the world has complicated the organization of the tournament. Officials decided temporarily that if they needed a quarantine era two weeks before the tournament, no one would come. Instead, they must administer two tests within the first 48 hours and meet the tests every 4 days.
Plus, U.S.T.A. looked at education, seeking to teach players the tactics of maximum productivity to avoid becoming infected. There has been a long debate about massage protocols: athletes and masseurs will have to wear a mask and a screen for the eyes, not the ultimate relaxing experience. Allowing viewers has never been a realistic consideration, and probably not for a long time, Dr. Camins said.
The Open is under pressure to succeed; The New York sports calendar is warming up.
Following the end of the tennis tournament on September 13, the world’s golfers will come to New York’s dominance for their sporting U.S.Open, which will be held at the Winged Foot Golf Club in Westchester County, also without fans. By October, the Yankees will have a smart chance in the playoffs. Later that year, the N.H.L. and the N.B.A., which has five groups from the region, needs to start playing again in the sands of houses.
The New York City Marathon, held in November, has been cancelled, but the New York Road Runners, the event organizer, will begin scheduling races in September and October.
“Speed is important,” said Michael Capiraso, general manager of New York Road Runners, who is part of a committee with other civic leaders looking to figure out how to re-host public events. “The city must start bringing events back, slowly and safely,” he said, adding: “I’m curious to see what comes out of tennis. We’re all informed of each other.”
What is at stake is minimal for a city where the main occasions are routine. In a general year, the U.S. Open tennis tournament generates about $400 million for the United States. and an estimated $750 million in economic activity, according to a study commissioned through the U.S.T.A.
It took months for fitness officials to get acquainted with the US Open concept. They’ve convinced the U.S.T.A. he had done his homework and the tennis organization had also pledged to create a comprehensive contact search program.
“A living pleasure is precisely how our eyes see it,” said Dr. Andrew Wallach, medical director of outpatient care at the New York City Health and Hospital Corporation. “What will inform us about the tournaments is a little more than a football match, however, we will be further informed about the preparation and testing and follow-up protocols at a sporting event. Wallach said the discussions were so rapid that they even included key points about who sits or on a bus, preparing city officials to discuss the main points of hosting other occasions in New York.
It may not just the coronavirus that is under scrutiny. The tournament begins at a time when athletes are their platform to draw attention to systemic racism and violence against blacks, along with the United States of America. Having suspended the game at an initial tournament Thursday after Naomi Osaka, the 2018 US Open champion, refused to play that day.
Still, for the world’s top tennis players, who have been sidelined since March, this is already a Grand Slam like no other. Many of them came to New York two weeks ago to compete in that preliminary tournament, the Western & Southern Open, which was moved from Cincinnati to the National Tennis Center to limit their travel.
“I feel like I’m back in the lower ranks,” said Serena Williams, who is going to win her 24th Grand Slam singles title, over the game without spectators.
Diego Schwartzman, who retired from the Western-Southern tournament on Tuesday, has spent more than five days seeking to fill downtime at the Long Island Marriott in Uniondale, New York.
“Playing cards with my team, watching Netflix, some videos, a lot to do when we’re on the hotel site,” Schwartzman said. “We’re in the tennis bubble.”
It’s not for everyone. World No. 2 Rafael Nadal has chosen not to play, and more than a dozen players have withdrawn from the tournament since the initial group of players was announced, raising considerations about restrictions or no less.
“We’re all going to be challenged mentally and emotionally,” said Novak Djokovic, the world number one, who lives in isolation in a rented house. “I try to keep an open mind and accept, because that’s all I can do now.”
In an attempt to make the occasion as friendly as possible to players, organizers added a shaded outdoor dining room and living room to the hotel’s parking lot, where tennis and other sports are featured on a giant screen and musicians are featured. There is also a games room, a gym and a golf simulator.
In the tennis center, where about 50,000 more people fill the stadiums every day, there are few clues about the same food, sale and corporate entertainment festival.
The endless rows of food counters are usually closed, there are picnic tables scattered throughout the squares and other shaded areas, adding the covered walkway at the third point of Arthur Ashe Stadium, where players can enjoy the most sensitive epic view of the ceiling. The 32 most sensible single players have their own luxury suites at Ashe Stadium. Organizers asked for 64 massage stretchers so players could be treated in those suites.
A corporate entertainment area with glass walls that Mercedes-Benz uses to entertain its consumers has an outdoor fitness center, full of treadmills and exercise bikes. Another corporate entertainment area is now the central part of the tournament.
South of Arthur Ashe Stadium includes a transitional mini-passlf field, cornhole games, a mini-tennis court and human-sized and chess pools, an attempt, with combined results, to entertain players, occupy them and pass out between their matches. Training
There are capacity regulations for the changing rooms. Electronic monitors track everyone’s whereabouts. Therefore, if a user test positives, those who have been potentially exposed may be notified.
The players were looking to eat together. You can’t. Eating and dressing with a mask is not supported.
Johanna Konta of Great Britain, occupied at 15th in the world, said she used Uber Eats or picked up food from one of the hotel’s legal food trucks. He tried the mini-passlf and the passlf simulator and played the arcade basketball game, which he said had a good time.
“Everyone is very sociable, but we’re in this little fish tank, so everyone also takes time in their room,” Konta said.
Tennys Sandgren, the other major American tennis player, said he and others learned that everyone invents things as they go.
“There is no genuine formula, there are the most productive assumptions of the people,” Sandgren said. “People will have to put themselves in an ever-changing world if they need to interact with it, and I’m in a position to do so.”
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