French Open chiefs admitted on Friday the decision to radically slash the number of fans allowed at the tournament to just 1,000 a day will mean “millions of euros up in smoke”.
However, that is just one of a number of headaches facing the organisers, a day from the start of the season’s final Grand Slam event.
‘We regret these restrictions’
The French Open should have been staged in May-June but was pushed back four months to avoid the worst of the coronavirus pandemic. However, with cases on the rise again, the French government has insisted a maximum of 1,000 fans a day be allowed into the Roland Garros grounds.
Initially, the French Tennis Federation (FFT) had hoped for 20,000 which then became 11,500 before suffering another downsize to 5,000.
“We deeply regret these new restrictions,” the FFT said in a statement. For FFT president Bernard Giudicelli,…