Kenny Rogers' Contribution to College Tennis; 2018 US Open Boys Champion Seyboth Wild Diagnosed with COVID-19; Olympics Postponed, Wimbledon Next?

Most of the obituaries following the death last week of country and pop singer Kenny Rogers did not mention his connection to tennis, but he was instrumental in funding the ITA Men's National Collegiate Tennis Hall of Fame in Athens Georgia, a fact I learned during my first trip to the NCAA Championships in Athens in 2007. The ITA today published a fascinating account of how Rogers came to be associated with the University of Georgia tennis program, with a free T-shirt demonstrating how big a small gesture can be.

Thiago Seyboth Wild won the US Open boys title in 2018

Most of what news remains in the tennis world now revolves around the COVID-19 pandemic, with 2018 US Open boys champion Thiago Seyboth Wild of Brazil the first professional tennis player to announce that he has contracted the virus. The 20-year-old, who won his first ATP title last month in Chile, last played a match in Australia on March 6 as part of a Davis Cup tie. Now ranked 114, Seyboth Wild is isolating to avoid spreading the disease and is urging others to do the same. This article at tennis.com provides the video Seyboth Wild used to make his announcement.

Wimbledon announced yesterday that a decision had not yet been made about whether that tournament will go forward as scheduled at the end of June. From the tone of the announcement, it appears that cancellation is the most likely outcome, with an emergency meeting of AELTC set for next week to determine the fate of this year's event. The announcement does firmly reject the idea of playing without spectators as an option.

The 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, scheduled to begin at the end of July, were formally postponed until 2021 on Tuesday. With the tennis portion of the Games scheduled for later in July than Wimbledon, the suggestion was floated that perhaps Wimbledon could delay until that time, but with the Olympics featuring a much smaller field in a 10-day tournament, that doesn't seem viable.