Virus again slashes French Open crowd sizes; now just 1,000

Already repeatedly trimmed, crowd sizes for the French Open have been reduced again to just 1,000 spectators per day because of the worsening coronavirus epidemic in Paris

Virus Outbreak French Open Tennis (Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

Already repeatedly trimmed, crowd sizes for the French Open have been reduced again — to just 1,000 spectators per day — because of the worsening coronavirus epidemic in Paris

The new limit, reduced from 5,000 per day, was first announced by Prime Minster Jean Castex on Thursday night. His office confirmed Friday that the reduction relates only to spectators, not to players, coaches, organizers and others working at Roland Garros, as Castex first said, causing initial confusion.

As virus cases have climbed, organizers have repeatedly had to scale back their ambitions. They had been planning, just three weeks ago, to have 11,500 spectators per day, split between three show courts.

That was then scaled back to 5,000 per day in all and, now, to just 1,000.

The latest reduction falls in line with new crowd-size limits introduced for all of Paris and its immediate suburbs this week, in the latest government efforts to combat increasing virus cases and hospitalizations.

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