Petra Černošková: I Was Optimistic Even During the Pandemic

“Her ability to work independently, her vigor, decisiveness and ability to persuasively communicate with players make her a perfect director,” said Černošek with reference to his good decision. However, this year’s tournament is held under completely different circumstances and conditions.

“I never really thought I would deal with problems associated with Covid-19 as the tournament director. Suddenly, I had a feeling I should be a physician or should have completed a few semesters at a school of medicine. I’m really sorry for the supervisor Ronald Herfel: instead of taking care of the schedule, players and overall organization of the tournament, we have to deal with tests, who has valid ones and whose expired, who can enter this and that hallway and various other preventive restrictions. Individual players come from different parts of the world and have different dates of their tests. The supervisor suggested that we should seek help from the tournament physician Renda Kloc who’s been with the tournament from almost the beginning. But he specializes in a different branch of medicine such as knee surgeries, muscle strains etc. He claimed it would be like trying to buy nails in a grocery shop and that he simply doesn’t understand it. He does not specialize in pandemics and cannot decided whether Australia’s tests are good enough and sufficient for Europe. He’s absolutely right.“

We’ve eventually overcome all problems in the end and MONETA Czech Open can take place in the end. “It took us a lot of effort but I was optimistic from the beginning. I believed the tournament would take place and that tennis would return to where it was before the pandemic. We had to overcome a lot but we are now holding the 27th MONETA Czech Open. I’ve been in touch with Joana Langhorne from ATP from the beginning. I told her we were ready, had sports premises and a hotel and that we could start the following day. What I’m not happy about? True, ATP and WTA prepared manuals for the pandemic situation. I don’t want to say it’s only on paper but there are not the same conditions everywhere. The country does not take a uniform approach to the corona virus and you need to put some common sense into it. I mean we need to do our best to make the tournament successful and satisfy all requirements. That was our goal and I achieved it successfully. But we’re still at the beginning of the tournament.“

Is Petra Černošková happy about tournament’s player field? “Who are the biggest favorites? It’s definitely the Spaniards: the first, fourth and fifth seeds. Andujar came to defend his title. But it doesn’t mean a Spaniard will win for the third time in a row … Our tournament hosts excellent players. Originally, three challengers were to be held this week, but Parma canceled and that is why Prostějov and Aix en Provence are the only remaining tournaments. ATP gave the players an opportunity to apply for this or for the French one. Thus, both tournaments have very good players. Anyway, many players don’t have anywhere to play, opportunities are scarce.“

The sports facility is open to the crowd but, of course, people must comply with strict hygienic rules. “We did everything we could so that we could play in front of the crowd. It does not really work without the crowd. Making people happy is the very purpose of sport. It’s useless if there is no atmosphere. Of course, we had to regulate movement within the sports facility. The hotel is strictly restricted to players and coaches, organization staff, and may not be entered by anybody else.“