Tennis Tours hope to save their seasons. It doesn’t get any easier.

The path is getting more and more bumpy for the professional tennis tours as they try to save the seasons disturbed by the corona virus pandemic.

For now, both the ATP Tour and WTA will resume play in August: the men in Washington, DC; the women in Palermo, Italy.

But last week, news came that the European Union would temporarily refuse entry to travelers from certain countries, including the United States and Russia. It is unclear whether athletes are exempted and concerns remain about the possibility of mandatory quarantines.

On Thursday, The Associated Press reported that Chinas are General Administration of Sport said the country would not host international sports events for the rest of 2020.

If it does, it would be a major blow to the people tour, which has tournaments planned in Beijing and Shanghai. But it would be a much bigger blow to the women’s tour, which has made China one of the spearheads, with seven events on the agenda for October and November.

These include the Wuhan Open, a potentially symbolic event for the city first hit by the coronavirus, and especially the WTA Finals, the year-end championships in Shenzhen, which earn the tour most of its revenue and award $ 14 million in prize money.

No final decisions were made, said Steve Simon, the director of the WTA Tour, in an interview about the Chinese government on Thursday.

Simon said he understood that the sports administration report was a recommendation, not a statement. He said the WTA was still in dialogue with the Chinese Tennis Association and government officials.

Clearly, it is something that the central government will eventually use to make decisions, Simon said. A conversation is still being held and an evaluation is being carried out within the region.

With his China swing in jeopardy, Simon said the tour was considering hosting tournaments in other locations late in the season. But he said the chances of moving the WTA final to another place in the short term were slim.

The WTA has no pandemic insurance for the event, but Simon said the tour would survive a cancellation. The hole we have will certainly be bigger and deeper, he said. But we do have plans that allow us to get out and be fine. It will be a challenge, but we can continue.

Resuming the game remains the goal for 2020. But it is becoming increasingly clear that when a relaunch comes, the tours will be even farther than usual.

Many events, including the United States Open, have long been planned to continue without spectators. But travel restrictions and recent changes to tour ranking systems could lead to uneven player access and significantly weaker pitches for events such as the US Open, which is scheduled for August 31 to September 13 in New York.

Chris Widmaier, a spokesperson for the United States Tennis Association, said USTA officials worked with the federal government to clarify the rules on quarantines and access for athletes and their teams when they enter the country.

He said the USTA also worked with the tours, the French tennis federation and other entities to ensure that players could travel freely to Europe after the US Open.

There are major gravel events in Madrid and Rome in the two weeks immediately following the US Open. The French Open, the last Grand Slam event of 2020, is scheduled from September 27 to October 11. The concern is that players may choose to stay in Europe rather than travel to New York. Rafael Nadal, the reigning US Open men’s champion, has already committed himself to Madrid, but not yet to the Open.

We try to cast as wide a net as possible, Widmaier said. We also spoke to the United States Olympic Committee and the International Olympic Committee and spoke to several ambassadors in Europe. We also work with a number of different immigration specialists who have a much more detailed understanding of the rapidly changing travel requirements related to travel to Europe.

Roger Federer, the Swiss star who is out of season due to knee surgery, said this week that he had spoken to the USTA and was told that a decision would be made at the end of July about holding the US Open. But Widmaier said there was no specific date when we will make a decision on progress.

Our goal is to keep the US Open on the scheduled date; that has always been and remains our goal, he said.

If immigration problems can be solved, logistical problems will remain for the Open and the tours.

Even if you lift travel restrictions, you still have flight availability and get the airlines back to a level that allows you to travel, Simon said.

Concerns about player access are one of the main reasons why the WTA has adopted a plan for a modified rating system similar to the ATPs. It extends the traditional reel system from 52 weeks to almost two years, eliminates mandatory events and allows any player to use the better result from 2019 or 2020 at any given event.

That means that if Serena Williams lost in the first round of the US Open 2020, she could still count her points from reaching the 2019 finals toward her current rankings as one of her top 16 singles results .

“I think the players really embraced it,” said Simon. And they have seen this as: How do you create honesty in an imperfect and unfair situation?