Lindt Home of Chocolate THE GRAND OPENING with Roger Federer

Roger Federer may not be in action on the court this year, but he’s definitely keeping busy.

The Swiss great recently participated in the grand opening of a new chocolate museum in Kilchberg, Switzerland.

The Lindt Home of Chocolate will offer visitors an interactive history of chocolate, a research center, along with the opportunity to see a nine-meter high chocolate fountain that contains 1.4 tons of chocolate.

Federer, who is a brand ambassador for Lindt said, “The Lindt Home of Chocolate is a unique chocolate experience and I look forward to coming here with my kids.”

The 20-time major champion is not competing this season as he continues to recover from knee surgery. Federer is hopeful though that he can start training soon for next year.

Federer told German daily Tages-Anzeiger that he wants to have two training sessions a day starting next week. His goal is to be fully ready for the 2021 Australian Open.


Though he admits he is getting closer to retirement, he wants to give himself more chances to fully compete on the tour.

“It would have been easy to retire now,” Federer said about not competing since January, “but I want to continue to offer myself the chance to take advantage of tennis.”

tennisnow.com

Roland Garros releases details on Covid safety measures for this year's tournament

Now that the health and safety protocol for the 2020 Roland-Garros tournament has been unveiled, Jean-François Vilotte, Director General of the FFT, gives us an outline of what to expect.

The 2020 edition of the Roland-Garros tournament, which begins on 21 September, will certainly be unusual. Firstly, due to the time of year: the Parisian Grand Slam is being played in the autumn, for the first time in the tournament’s history.

Secondly, due to the transformation of Philippe-Chatrier court, which now boasts a retractable roof. And lastly, due to the health crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, which requires an extremely strict health and safety protocol to be rolled out for everyone involved in the event.

For rolandgarros.com, Jean-François Vilotte, Director General of the French Tennis Federation, explains the reasoning behind the measures and gives specific details about how they will be implemented.

Can you give us an outline of the health and safety protocol to be implemented at Roland-Garros?

The aim of this health and safety protocol is to act responsibly by protecting everyone who, for whatever reason, is present inside the stadium during the 2020 edition of the tournament, while organising this outstanding international tennis event. The primary protective measure is to enable everyone to respect social distancing guidelines and hygiene precautions: first of all, the health and safety protocol states that everyone must wear a face covering, that the flow of people will be managed so that social distancing guidelines can be respected and, for the same reason, it ensures that enough space will be left between spectators when seated. Similarly, a whole series of passive protective measures will be rolled out inside the stadium, such as hand sanitiser dispensers. But, in addition to these measures, we have devised a way of physically partitioning the stadium so that visitors can avoid close interaction with other people.


Was partitioning the stadium the best solution for welcoming visitors in the best possible conditions this year?

The partitions put in place will be restrictive, but they are there for obvious reasons so the spectators will understand. The way Roland-Garros Stadium is set out and managed will, of course, be quite different to previous editions. But we are lucky to have a 12-hectare stadium that spans 1 kilometre from east to west, and various competition sites: Simonne-Mathieu court to the east, then Philippe-Chatrier court, Suzanne-Lenglen court and, to the west, the outside courts. This unique layout means that Roland-Garros stadium is not like any other traditional sporting facility. This distinctive feature will allow us to organise the tournament in the best possible way, to ensure that the competition runs smoothly – which is non-negotiable – while ensuring the safety of the various populations.

These populations include the people who organise the tournament in every sense. What provisions have been made for them?

In terms of the people who are regularly present inside the stadium, in particular the people who are involved in organising the different aspects of the tournament, we have set up a testing policy that will determine whether or not their accreditation will be issued. And for accredited persons present at the stadium over a longer period, these tests will be repeated at various intervals throughout the tournament’s duration.

We imagine that the protocol will also be extremely strict for the players and their entourage…

Yes of course. We will pay particular attention to the athletes and their entourage who, by definition, will be in greater proximity to one another. So, again, following the example we have seen elsewhere and which we ourselves have put in place when organising other, less prestigious tournaments [Ed.: such as the Challenge Elite FFT], we will implement strict hygiene conditions for the athletes and their entourage in order to monitor and detect any traces of COVID-19 contamination. This health and safety protocol is extremely strict and very responsible. We would never have considered holding the tournament if we were not convinced, along with the public authorities, that this health and safety protocol fulfils all of the current health and hygiene guidelines.

The decision to hold Roland-Garros in this unprecedented context was not taken lightly, we see…

The FFT has a responsibility to protect the health of anyone involved in the tournament: it has a responsibility to international tennis to organise this major tournament and it also has a responsibility to society. What we want people to see is that it is possible to enjoy sport, socialise and interact with other people while respecting strict health and hygiene guidelines. We want our tournament to be truly remarkable and to set an example, from all angles. By setting an example with our tournament, we hope to prove that we can get the economy back on track, though it goes without saying that certain conditions and certain restrictions must be respected.


What do you mean by this?

As the organisers of this sporting event – which is, along with the Tour de France, the most important regular international sporting event to be held in France – we have a responsibility in terms of employment, economic activity, the reputation of the City of Paris and the Greater Paris region, and, more generally, the events-based economy. From this point of view, the 2020 tournament is not just a sporting event, it is also proof that, even in the current climate, we have the human resources and the expertise, in the field of sporting events, to organise an event of this scale while doing everything we can to ensure the health and safety of all people involved.

Discover here all the details of the health and safety protocol.

rolandgarros.com

Sorry, but I'm still not convinced. At least with the U.S. Open there were no people. 

Which seems logical and easier to control, having all these people even in these different sections seems kind of reckless. 

But that's partially my own anxiety talking.

I wish them all the luck in the world, but I wonder how many of the top players will actually show up. Besides Djoker who of course will because he was denied in the U.S. 

Other than him and Stan, I don't know how many top ten guys will be there. Biggest question of course will be whether Nadal will be there to defend his title. 

And I'm honestly curious how many of the women will show up as well. 

Novak Djokovic disqualified from U.S. Open 4th round for hitting lines person in the throat with a tennis ball

Well, now we know the answer to the most discussed tennis question in 2020. Who can beat Novak Djokovic, who entered today’s fourth round U.S. Open match, 26-0 on the year?


The answer: Novak Djokovic.

An absolutely stunning unforced error, Djokovic was defaulted this afternoon late in the first set of his match against Spain's Pablo Carreño Busta. While Djokovic’s anger was self-directed, he fired off ball that struck a lineswoman in the throat. In accordance with the Grand Slam rulebook, this “negligent disregard” triggers an automatic default. In legal terms, this is a strict liability crime.

Djokovic left the grounds without speaking to the media, but this may mark a massive pivot point—not just of this unusual tournament but of tennis history. With 17 career major singles titles, Djokovic trails Rafael Nadal (19) and Roger Federer (20), the lead criteria in tennis’ GOAT debate. As the only member of the Big Three to attend this event — he took the court today as the only male player in the draw to have ever won a major — he was the odds-on favorite to win in New York and narrow the gap.

Not only will that not happen, but one wonders about the long-term impact of this gaffe. In an extraordinarily harshly worded statement, the USTA noted that Djokovic will lose all of his ranking points and prize money from this tournament, and will likely be fined additionally. How Djokovic will handle the splashback from this catastrophe will be a prominent theme going forward.

As for the tournament itself, it, too, was jolted. For the first time in four years, a player outside the Big Three will walk away with the title. Austria’s Dominic Thiem is the highest remaining seed and Russia’s Daniil Medvedev, who reached the final last year, is still in the draw as well. And let’s devote a few lines to Carreño Busta, the opponent today. While Djokovic authored his own demise, the Spaniard’s play was a contributing factor, causing, as it did, such frustration and agitation. Rightly stunned, as so many others were, Carreño Busta said afterwards, “I never expected this moment.”

Neither did the tournament. Part of what makes this incident still more remarkable: the context. This “closed open,” the first tennis major staged post-COVID, featured no fans and a bubble-type of atmosphere. Officials planned for hundreds of scenarios and eventualities and controversies. The top seed defaulted mid-match for hitting a line judge with a ball was not among them.

The popular discussion topic before this tournament: would the title come adorned with an asterisk, given the absence of fans and a moth-eaten field. The view here was that it would possibly be quite the opposite: the players who won the event would not have a diluted title, but one freighted with extra meaning, able, as they were to compartmentalize the chaos and persevere. It is beyond shocking that the world’s number one player in the world wasn’t up to that. And took himself out of contention.


si.com

2020 continues it's track record of bizzare events. Of all the opponents I thought would knock Djokovic out of the tournaments, I never could have figured it would be himself.

He has made a statement on his Instagram and Twitter, where he apologizes several times but that's something that should have been done right off the bat not 2 hours later. So damage is done there. It's a bit of karma for Djokovic really. 

He handled the pandemic thing with the Adria Tour atrociously and he's been getting away with these out bursts recently so it was bound to catch up to him eventually. Hopefully he'll learn and grow from it. 

But I'll be honest it's not going to make me dislike him less. He may get more titles than Roger and Rafa in the end. 

But he'll never be in the same league in terms of class, and he'll never have the same respect in that regard.