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Two more top-10 women — Elina Svitolina and Kiki Bertens — will miss the U.S. Open, joining No. 1-ranked Ash Barty in skipping the Grand Slam tennis tournament, due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The fifth-ranked Svitolina, a Ukrainian who was a semifinalist at Flushing Meadows a year ago, posted, yesterday, on social media, that she doesn’t “feel comfortable to travel to US without putting my team and myself at high risk.”
No. 7 Bertens, who is Dutch, wrote on Instagram that one of her concerns is the need to be quarantined upon returning to Europe after the U.S. Open, which runs from August 31 to September 13, and will not have any spectators.
The French Open — where Bertens reached the semifinals in 2016 — is scheduled to begin September 27. She also wants to play on the clay-court tournament in Rome before heading to Paris.
“The situation around COVID-19 is still that worrying and the health of everyone and the control over this virus is priority,” Bertens wrote.
