‘I always said I would put my health at the heart of my decision’ Andreescu, Barty, Svitolina, Bertens and Bencic already outWhen Simona Halep confirmed on Monday she was joining five other top-10
US Open refuseniks, all of them from outside the
United States, the tournament organisers could do no more than sigh, reshuffle the women’s draw yet again and hope this was the end of it.
It probably is, given most of the serious contenders have arrived in
New York to play in the rescheduled Cincinnati Open, the on-site warm-up event that starts on Thursday. However, in the unlikely event
Serena Williams, Naomi Osaka or Coco Gauff were to pull out, the US Open would be in serious personality deficit. They are the big names left in the women’s draw of a tournament whose nervous organisers – naturally concerned about taking a $120m hit through potential lost global television revenue – agonised before deciding to go ahead without fans in the cavernous stadiums of the Billie Jean King Center.