The 2020 Wimbledon has been cancelled because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The tournament was scheduled to be played on the All England Club from 29 June to 12 July but has now been called off for the first time in the tournament’s history since World War II.
The next edition of the tournament will be played from 28 June to 11 July, 2021.
The ATP and WTA also announced that the men’s and women’s professional tennis tours would be suspended until at least July 13. They already had been on hold through June 7.
Wimbledon first was held in 1877 and has been contested every year since, with the exception of two stretches: from 1915-18 because of World War I, and from 1940-45 because of World War II.
"It has weighed heavily on our minds that the staging of The Championships has only been interrupted previously by World Wars,” club chairman Ian Hewitt said in a press release, “but, following thorough and extensive consideration of all scenarios, we believe that it is a measure of this global crisis that it is ultimately the right decision to cancel this year's Championships, and instead concentrate on how we can use the breadth of Wimbledon's resources to help those in our local communities and beyond.”
Wimbledon joins the growing list of sports events called off completely in 2020 because of the COVID-19 outbreak. That includes the Tokyo Olympics — which have been pushed back 12 months — and the NCAA men's and women's college basketball tournaments.
Wimbledon is the first major tennis championship completely wiped out this year because of the coronavirus. The start of the French Open was postponed from late May to late September.
As of now, the U.S. Open is still scheduled to be played in New York from Aug. 31 to Sept. 13.
Wednesday's decision means Novak Djokovic and Simona Halep will not get a chance to defend their Wimbledon titles from 2019.
The cancellation also takes away what might have been one of Roger Federer's best chances to try to add to his 20 Grand Slam titles, including a record eight at Wimbledon, where he lost a fifth-set tiebreaker to Djokovic in the last final after holding a pair of championship points. Federer, who turns 39 in August, is currently recovering from knee surgery and planned to return in time for the grass-court circuit.
In a statement last week, the All England Club said that postponing the two-week event would not come "without significant risk and difficulty" because of the grass surface. The club also said then that it already had ruled out "playing behind closed doors" without spectators.
The tennis schedule already had been affected by the illness that has spread around the world, with about 20 tournaments postponed or canceled.
The French tennis federation announced March 17 that its Grand Slam tournament was being moved.
The NBA, NHL and Major League Baseball are on hold indefinitely; the Kentucky Derby, Masters and Indianapolis 500 were pushed back several months until September; the European soccer championship — scheduled to end in London on the same day as the Wimbledon men's final — was postponed from 2020 to 2021.
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