Australian coach Cahill rallies behind ATP/WTA merger idea

4/27/2020 - 10:15:06 AM

Australian Darren Cahill, the coach of two-times Grand Slam winner Simona Halep, has backed the idea of merging the men's and women's tours, saying it would make tennis simpler for both players and fans.

Darren Cahill, coach of Romania's Simona Halep watches her match against Denmark's Caroline Wozniacki. (Reuters)

Cahill, who has also previously worked with Andre Agassi and Lleyton Hewitt, said uniformity in rules and rankings will help all stakeholders.

* Tajikistan, one of just a handful of nations that had pressed ahead with a soccer season despite the novel coronavirus pandemic, said on Sunday it was suspending games until May 10 after the government decided to take fresh precautionary measures.

* NBA team practice facilities will reportedly reopen on Friday in states and cities where coronavirus pandemic stay-at-home requirements have been loosened, allowing players to conduct individual workouts. ESPN reported that teams will remain banned from conducting group workouts or other activities, citing unnamed sources.

* Spain's health minister Salvador Illa said on Sunday (Apr 26) it would be "imprudent" to promise the football season would restart before the summer as the country took steps to ease one of the world's toughest coronavirus lockdowns.

* A Professional Bull Riders (PBR) competition took place in an empty arena in the US on Sunday with cowboys in facemasks clinging onto 1,500-pound (680.39 kg) bucking bulls while most professional sports remained on coronavirus lockdown.

* Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte on Sunday (Apr 26) delayed a decision on restarting Serie A football but gave the green light for top athletes to resume training in a week's time. He said individual athletes would be allowed to resume training on May 4, while teams could start to train together again on May 18.

* Rafa Nadal has said he is very pessimistic about the possibility of tennis returning to normal any time soon because of the new coronavirus pandemic that shut down the sport last month. Professional tennis has been suspended until the end of July, at the earliest, and the Spaniard said on Sunday that serious problems stand in the way of a resumption.

* Balls and pitches will need to be sterilised frequently when Spanish soccer returns in order to minimise the chance of players getting infected by the novel coronavirus, a leading doctor in the sport has said.

Source: Reuters, CNA

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