whether it will be allowed to open the
Stadio Olimpico. England Rugby
Travel is not yet offering new packages
until it has confirmation from the FIR.
Once the Six Nations is decided on
October 31, the teams will have one
week off before playing in a new eight-
nation tournament, which will feature
Japan and Fiji. It replaces the autumn
internationals, which were cancelled
because New Zealand, Australia, South
Africa and Argentina will take part in
the postponed Rugby Championship.
No fixtures or venues have yet been
confirmed for this autumn tournament
and no broadcast deal has been done,
which could be critical to its success if
supporters cannot attend. The RFU
had stated that playing matches behind
closed doors would be as costly to the
organisation as not playing them at all.
The RFU wrote to the community
game yesterday confirming the league
season for clubs below the Champion-
ship would not begin in September.ELSA/GETTY IMAGES: TANNEN MAURY/EPAUS Open organisers have ordered star
players such as Novak Djokovic and
Serena Williams to hire security guards
as part of their strict protocols to ensure
that the biosecure bubble around the
grand-slam tournament is not
breached.
While there are two designated
hotels in Long Island, New York, for
competitors and their coaching teams,
the United States Tennis Association
(USTA) has also made a selection of
private homes available for those who
are willing to pay for their own space
during the event, which runs from
August 31 to September 13.
Players who wish to take up this op-
tion have been informed that they will
also have to cover the significant costs
of contracting a private security service
to monitor their movements. Tourna-
ment officials must also be permitted to
see the records of entry and exit times.
This particular protocol indicates a
lack of faith in players respecting the
Fixtures confirmed but fans
wait for Six Nations restart
Rugby union
Alex Lowe Deputy Rugby Correspondent
The Six Nations will reach its belated
climax on October 31 but organisers are
waiting to hear whether the title will be
won behind closed doors.
The final three matches will be
played on that day: Wales v Scotland
will be at 2.15pm, followed by Italy v
England at 4.45pm and France v
Ireland at 8pm. Assuming Ireland beat
Italy in Dublin on October 24, four
teams will enter “Super Saturday” with
a chance of winning the championship.
The Irish union confirmed yesterday
it had cancelled all of the original
tickets issued for the Italy game. It con-
firmed that the French union had done
the same for the France-Ireland fixture.
About 10,000 England supporters
were expected in Rome for the Italy
game in March. The Italian union has
not yet cancelled any tickets while it
waits for government guidance onPrivate security to keep tabs on players
bubble. Aware of the recent breaches in
basketball and golf, organisers are un-
derstood to be extra cautious because
of the behaviour surrounding Djokov-
ic’s Adria Tour exhibition series in the
Balkans earlier this summer, when nine
people involved tested positive after a
noticeable lack of social distancing.
“Athletes are required to have 24-
hour security, pay for all costs asso-
ciated with the security and receive ap-
proval in advance by the USTA of the
nature and type of security,” the US
Open player factsheet reads. “The
USTA must be provided with access to
the external security egress and ingress
information for the duration of the time
in the private housing.”
Andy Murray last week called for
“severe repercussions” for anyone who
failed to follow the health and safety
guidelines and expressed concerns that
the bubble could be breached by allow-
ing people to stay in private homes. The
2012 champion will be relieved, then,
that the player factsheet shows that
organisers are taking a no-nonsense
approach.Players have been warned that they
will immediately be removed from the
draw and fined if they leave the bubble
without permission. Any guests — a
maximum of three are allowed — who
breach the protocols will have their ac-
creditation revoked and be banned
from attending next year’s tournament.
Any player who tests positive will al-
so be withdrawn from the tournament
and ordered to isolate for ten days. It
increases to 14 days if a player is sharing
a room with a member of their entou-
rage who tests positive.
While Djokovic is on the US Open
entry list, it is by no means certain that
he will participate. Players can still
withdraw at this point and he is one of
many from Europe who are eagerly
awaiting confirmation of a quarantine
exemption. The USTA have so far gone
no farther than saying that they have
made “positive progress” with Euro-
pean authorities on this front.
Rafael Nadal is definitely out, how-
ever, and said on Tuesday that he would
not appear in New York because of
concerns about the health situation.Tennis
Stuart Fraser Tennis Correspondent
Mad scientist setting
sights on first major
Rick BroadbentHere comes Bryson DeChambeau.
You can’t miss him really. He is the
golfer who added 45lb in nine
months to become golf’s biggest
hitter; since then he has been busy
with a rules run-in about dangerous
ants and saying that he intends to
live until he is 130. Now the mad
scientist faces the litmus test.
DeChambeau, 26, from Modesto
in California, is the world No 7 but
has never threatened at a major. “I
don’t feel there is a better time,” he
said as he looked to today’s first
round of the US PGA Championship
in San Francisco.
Having devoted himself to Muscle
Activation Techniques (MAT),
chomped his way through 3,500
calories a day and quaffed an ocean
of protein shakes, DeChambeau is
30 yards longer off the tee than last
year. He now averages 321 yards but
upped that to 423 on one par four at
the Memorial Tournament last
month.
He splits opinion as well as
fairways. Eddie Pepperell, the British
player, dubbed him “the unaffected
single-minded twit” for his painfully
slow play. Brooks Koepka, the
defending US PGA champion,
mocked him last week after he cited
the “Dangerous Animals” condition
that means players can take relief if
under threat of serious injury from
dangerous animals, including fire
ants. DeChambeau claimed there
were ants swarming over his ball,
which also happened to have a bad
lie. When Koepka later found
himself in the same position, he
joked: “There’s an ant.”
Now DeChambeau says the
thickest rough that players have seen
since the restart will not make him
more cautious. “This course suits a
bomber,” he said after a look at
Harding Park. “I’d say it’s pretty
straightforward to be honest. The
risk is worth the reward. If you hit itinto the rough you can still hit it out
to the front edge of the green.”
DeChambeau is attracting a lot of
interest, which can only be a good
thing. The sport is always more in
love with the past than the future, so
radical thinking invites scepticism.
However, there is method in what
some see as his madness. His work
with Greg Roskopf from MAT was
originally based around
strengthening his softer muscles.
The left side of his trunk was his
weak spot. He now trains every day.
His diet is based on a 2:1 protein-
carbohydrate ratio. He says he tries
to attain a parasympathetic “sleep”
state so that he can play without
emotion. And if it sounds vaguely
sci-fi when he starts talking about
monitoring air pressure, surface
firmness and ball spin before
relaxing with his Neuropeak Pro
training unit to monitor brain waves,
it beats golfers talking nine-irons.
Curiously, DeChambeau’s go-to
book is an arcane text called The
Golfing Machine that came out in- Homer Kelley’s tome claimed
the golf swing could be reduced to
geometry and physics. DeChambeau
took this on board and so he says
there are 144 variations of 24
components of the 12 sections of the
swing. The one-plane swing and
single-length irons were born of this.
The swing is now so fast and
violent that DeChambeau looks like
he is mugging the air, but he is more
than that. “Strokes gained” is the stat
that compares a golfer with the PGA
Tour field, and he is sixth in putting
as well as first off the tee.
He admits that his wedge play
needs to improve but he was in the
top ten at his first four post-
lockdown tournaments, culminating
in his win at the Rocket Mortgage
Classic. “I’ve shown people there’s
another way to do it,” DeChambeau
said after that success. If he
upgrades that on Sunday it will be
protein shakes all round.
From middle of the road...
- Cameron Champ
- Rory McIlroy
- Luke List
- Dustin Johnson
- Wyndham Clark
- Bryson DeChambeau
Driving distance
Last season, yards317.9313.5313.3312311.8302.5...to head of the field
- DeChambeau
- Champ
- Ryan Brehm
- Grayson Murray
- McIlroy
Driving distance
This season, yards324.4321.3314.7314.1312.9Before
(September 2019)
13st 11lb
After
(June 2020)
17st
the times | Thursday August 6 2020 1GM 59