Ashleigh Barty, who has been world number one in the WTA rankings since September 2019, will not play any tennis in New York at the end of August.

- My team and I have decided not to travel to the US for the Western and Southern Open or US Open this year, she says.

The reason for the star's decision is concerns about the corona pandemic.

- I love the tournaments so it was a difficult decision but it is still a big risk due to covid-19 and it does not feel good to put my team in that situation, she says.

The US Open starts on August 31 at Flushing Meadows, Queens in New York. The Western and Southern Open in Cincinnati begins before that on August 20.

The US Open is one of the four largest tennis tournaments along with Wimbledon, the Australian Open and the French Open. Due to the progress of the coronavirus, the Australian Open is the only one of these held this year. French Open will be played this fall. Asleigh Barty is unsure of games even there.

"I will make a decision on the French Open in the coming weeks," she told the Herald Sun.

MORE TENNIS: Wimbledon distributes SEK 120 million to players (July 10, 2020)

Javascript is disabled

Javascript must be turned on to play video

Read more about browser support

The browser is not supported

SVT does not support playback in your browser. We therefore recommend that you switch to another browser.

Read more about browser support