The International Tennis Federation (ITF) took to Twitter to share an adorable video of "the ultimate tennis coach". In the 30-second long video, a toddler can be seen bouncing a tennis ball from inside a basket. A player standing beside the basket can be seen hitting the ball after it bounces off the floor. The cute video from the ITF invited messages from fans on Twitter. "Just lovely, so sweet!" a user said while retweeting the video, while another joined in saying: "How adorable That better make a spot on tv show."
The novel coronavirus brought International tennis to a standstill in March. On Thursday, the WTA Tour revised its provisional 2020 schedule and player rankings method as women's tennis prepare to return from a coronavirus pandemic shutdown.
The WTA plans to return August 3 with the Palermo Ladies Open and two more events were unveiled Thursday for the week of August 10, the Prague Open in the Czech Republic and the Top Seed Open in Lexington, Kentucky.
The US event replaces a hardcourt Washington stop that typically was played alongside an ATP Tour event. "As the WTA Tour looks to return to competition in 2020, we are pleased to provide additional playing opportunities for our athletes," WTA chairman Steve Simon said.
The WTA rankings system calculates player results for ratings used for seedings and entry into tournament draws, typically drawing upon a woman's top 16 singles results or 11 doubles results over the past 52 weeks, with some events weighted more. The rankings were frozen on March 16 due to the COVID-19 hiatus.
(With AFP inputs)