{"id":16518,"date":"2020-08-05T13:31:43","date_gmt":"2020-08-05T08:01:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/?p=29027"},"modified":"2020-08-05T13:31:43","modified_gmt":"2020-08-05T08:01:43","slug":"19-time-major-champion-rafael-nadal-will-not-defend-his-us-open-title","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/tennis\/19-time-major-champion-rafael-nadal-will-not-defend-his-us-open-title\/","title":{"rendered":"19 time Major Champion, Rafael Nadal will not defend his US Open title"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>World number Two and 19 time Major Champion, Rafael Nadal yesterday took to social media to announce that he will not be defending his US Open crown. Owing to the novel Coronavirus outbreak, he voiced his concerns regarding safety and health measures. Nadal was the champion at Flushing Meadows in 2019, defeating Medvedev in a pulsating five setter. His announcement comes as the tournament organisers decided to release the entry list for the 2020 tournament.<\/p>\n<p>Nadal explained his decision in a series of tweets sent in Spanish and English on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">This is a decision I never wanted to take but I have decided to follow my heart this time and for the time being I rather not travel. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/8VA0aSACVy\">pic.twitter.com\/8VA0aSACVy<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Rafa Nadal (@RafaelNadal) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/RafaelNadal\/status\/1290713874698776577?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 4, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>\u201cAfter many thoughts, i have decided not to play this year\u2019s US Open,\u201d Nadal said. \u201cThe situation is very complicated worldwide, the COVID-19 cases are increasing, it looks like we still don\u2019t have control of it,\u201d Nadal wrote. The 34-year-old from Spain called sitting out the tournament scheduled to begin Aug. 31 in New York \u201ca decision I never wanted to take,\u201d but added that he would \u201crather not travel.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Nadal\u2019s plan to skip the U.S. Open came shortly after the Madrid Open, scheduled for September, was canceled because of the pandemic.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe know that the reduced tennis calendar is barbaric this year after 4 months stopped with no play,\u201d Nadal wrote on Twitter. \u201cI understand and thank for the efforts they are putting in to make it happen.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRafa is one of the greatest champions in our sport and we support his decision,\u201d U.S. Open tournament director Stacey Allaster said.<\/p>\n<p>The current No. 1-ranked woman, Ash Barty, already had announced she would be missing the U.S. Open. The U.S. Tennis Association\u2019s entry list announcements Tuesday noted that 2019 women\u2019s champion Bianca Andreescu is in the field \u2014 at least for now; players can withdraw until the start of play \u2014 but made no mention of Nadal.<\/p>\n<p>Nadal\u2019s decision means that this year\u2019s US Open would mark the first year since 1999 where neither of the reputed pair \u2018Fedal\u2019 \u2013 Federer and Nadal are part of a grand slam. Federer due to his year long sabbatical due to injury and Nadal due to Covid-19 concerns.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Citing Covid-19 concerns, Rafael Nadal took to social media to announce his decision.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":37378,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[336,202,335],"class_list":["post-16518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tennis","tag-rafael-nadal","tag-tennis","tag-us-open"],"reading_time":"2 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16518"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16518\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}