- Wimbledon was scheduled to be played between June 29 and July 12
The Wimbledon Championships have been cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic, the All England Club has confirmed.
The Championship has been cancelled for the first time since World War II following an emergency board meeting on Wednesday.
The global pandemic has crippled many sporting events including Euro 2020 and Tokyo Olympics 2020.
This is the first time the championships have not been staged since 1945.
“We believe, given the measure of this global crisis, that it is ultimately the right decision to cancel The Championships 2020 and instead concentrate on how we can use the breadth of our resources to help those in our local communities and beyond”
– Ian Hewitt, AELTC Chairman
— Wimbledon (@Wimbledon) April 1, 2020
Only the 1986 Grand Slam Australian Open was missed for technical reasons – the date shifting from December to January.
The Wimbledon Championships were scheduled to be played between June 29 and July 12.
“It is with great regret that the Main Board of the All England Club (AELTC) and the Committee of Management of The Championships have today decided that The Championships 2020 will be cancelled due to public health concerns linked to the coronavirus epidemic,” Wimbledon said in a statement on its website.
Wimbledon was canceled from 1915 to 1918 because of World War I and from 1940 to 1945 due to World War II.
Discussion on moving the event into late July or August this year was fronted but the lack of enough sunlight and too much dew at that time of the year made the idea appear problematic.
The decision to cancel the Grand Slam event came a few hours after an announcement that 563 people had died of the virus – the highest one day figure of people who have succumbed to the virus.
