TENNIS LEGENDS VODCAST WITH TOMMY HAAS

I don’t even know where to begin because there’s obviously been a lot of little details that went into consideration. Of course, I usually get to the desert about 2 – 2.5 weeks before the tournament starts to make sure that everything is in the up and up in the way it needs to be and discuss everything with the entire team of people that are doing a tremendous job of getting everything set up. So, we have the Oracle Challenger Series there as well, the week before. And right about that time during the 2nd or 3rd day of the Oracle Challenger Series we started kind of hearing about more and more cases of Covid-19, about the Coronavirus being more serious. I think it was at that time when it started getting really, really bad in Italy.

We knew that we still get a lot of international fans coming from all around the world. So, my boss Mr Larry Ellison and his amazing medical team had a conversation with us about saying; how are we looking at this? What are the steps that we are taking? Cause there were a lot of mixed emotions. We started to talk to the government of California as well.

We started to have some cases all of a sudden in San Francisco. The cruise line was coming in. So, we started to see some action. We didn’t have any Coronavirus cases in the Coachella Valley in the desert up until the Saturday night before the tournament started on Monday for the qualifying events. But as soon as we heard that that was the case on the Saturday night before and the Riverside County declared a state of emergency, that’s when the red flags really started going up. And having these talks with the medicals experts days before, really discussing what we are going up against – having the expertise also of Larry Ellison and the information that he might get a little earlier than us - he was in some conversations with a lot of interesting people that were saying ‘Look, as soon as you have the first case, you will have to start looking at this from another angle. And we also discussed the fact that our event is two weeks long.

During the qualifying days we usually have 15,000 people coming into the grounds. On the first weekend we have 40,000 people running around the grounds next to each other. Yes, it was still an open type facility. So not indoors, which they were saying we don’t like the fact people on top of each other indoors. But the NBA games were still going on with people at that time. Hockey, NHL, games were still going on. And there were still talks about maybe not having spectators all of a sudden. So, we were looking into maybe not having spectators but going on with the tournament.

We were looking into having ball kids wearing gloves, they won’t touch the players towels, all the players would have been in charge of on their own. We were looking at every possibility. No longer about who is coming, what are we doing and what can we make different for the fans, the sponsors, the players… We were only talking about what if, what if – how can we do this, how can we manage this situation, how can we look at that situation. How can we maybe have a tournament without spectators, but still you have all the security people, you have all the staff, you have all the volunteers, the lines men. You know, it’s just like how do you differentiate?

All it takes is that one person has the Coronavirus to make it sort of a big, big deal. And we are a too big of a tournament. So, it seems like as soon as we had that first case - once again in Riverside County they had the State of Emergency – we had to say: we’re not having a tournament. It’s just the safer thing. And at that time no sporting event was really stopped. So, we literally were the first and when we were sitting all day in meeting rooms, the entire team scratching up our heads. Going ‘how are we going to tell the players that we’re not having a tournament’? I was just about to go and do the qualifying draw for the ladies and I said: ‘I have to push it back for half an hour, push it back an hour’. And when I came in there I said ‘guys, I am so sorry to let you know but we’re not going through with the tournament’. And it had to be our decision as well, because looking back it would have been really helpful if the government of California or our governor Mr. Newsom would have said ‘look you know, it’s an emergency situation we can no longer have sporting events going on’. We wouldn’t have been allowed to go on with the tournament. So, it was really on us. And then we had to explain it to the players.

Again, the players were a little shocked here and there at the beginning, but then once we explained the situation, they were very understanding. It is about health first, no question about it. It is about saving lifes, no questions about it, when something like this comes up there’s always a bigger thing or whatever in general. Health comes first. That’s the most important thing over anything. And so, looking back now at that certain time we and myself as a player, it’s a very hard decision. At the same time now looking back we’re going: it was the absolute right decision. There’s no question about it.

Tommy Haas was speaking exclusively to a special edition of Eurosport's Tennis Legends vodcast alongside Simona Halep, Boris Becker and Mats Wilander