Naomi Broady: GB player considered supermarket work during coronavirus lockdown

  • Posted: Apr 02, 2020

Naomi Broady says she considered applying to work in a supermarket after Wimbledon was cancelled and the tennis season halted until at least 13 July.

Wimbledon was called off for the first time since World War Two on Wednesday because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Broady has not played a match since suffering an ankle injury last October.

“Tennis is an individual sport and we win our money, so if we’re not able to win it, we don’t get any, it’s that simple,” she told BBC Radio Manchester.

“I was looking at doing supermarket work, especially at the start when they were saying they were struggling for staff.”

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In addition to the entire grass-court season being abandoned, the French Open, on clay, has been rescheduled from May to 20 September-4 October.

Broady says professional tennis players have yet to receive any financial support despite the cancellation of tournaments.

The 30-year-old continued: “No players will be earning money whilst the tours are off. I know a lot of the lower ranked players who don’t really make [much] money on the tour, don’t have savings and they’re campaigning to try and get some sort of financial help or relief.

“The small bit of relief, almost, is that everyone is in the same boat. The country is in lockdown now so unless players have got a court in their own back garden, which isn’t many of them, no one is able to do anything at all.”

Broady and her younger brother Liam, also a professional player, have signed up on social media as volunteers to help people in their area with shopping or prescription pick-ups.

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