Simona Halep’s coach Darren Cahill says ‘his gut feeling is she will be reluctant’ to play in US Open
Simona Halep’s coach Darren Cahill admits the world No 2 is hesitant about travelling to New York to play in the US Open.
A string of high-profile WTA Tour players, including world No 1 Ashleigh Barty, defending champion Bianca Andreescu and world No 5 Elina Svitolina, have pulled out of the hard-court Grand Slam due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Reigning Wimbledon champion Halep had previously admitted that she is not sure if she will play in this year’s tournament at Flushing Meadows, but her name remains on the official entry list.
The Romanian confirmed earlier this week that she will only make a decision on whether or not she will compete in the US Open at the conclusion of this week’s Prague Open.
Simona Halep delays US Open decision to see what changes organisers ‘are gonna make’
Her coach Cahill was asked by Nine’s Wide World of Sports for his views on the withdrawals and replied: “You have got to put some perspective on it as more women are pulling out of the US Open than men, I think 17 out of the top 100 have pulled out so far.
“We don’t know what Simona Halep is going to do, she is playing in the final of the Prague Open overnight. My gut feeling is she is a bit reluctant to come across to New York, but we will wait 24 hours to see how that pans out.
“But on the men’s side only nine of the top 100 have pulled out and normally for a Grand Slam we have nine, 10, 11 that don’t play any there.
“Okay we don’t have Nadal there, but Djokovic is there and if you cast your mind back to a few years there was a bunch of tournaments in 2016, 2017 where we didn’t have Nadal, no Federer, no [Stan] Wawrinka, no [Juan Martin] del Potro, no Milos Raonic, [Kei] Nishikori, [Andy] Murray, [Marin] Cilic there is a whole bunch of players that were missing big tournaments and the tournaments still went ahead.
“The record will show we will have a men’s champion and a women’s champion and the tournament is going ahead and history will show that it will count towards those records.”
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