{"id":3871,"date":"2026-03-04T04:24:05","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T04:24:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.spotvnow.com\/read\/?p=3871"},"modified":"2026-03-04T04:24:31","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T04:24:31","slug":"uae-tennis-tournaments-cancelled-following-iranian-drone-attack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.spotvnow.com\/read\/uae-tennis-tournaments-cancelled-following-iranian-drone-attack\/","title":{"rendered":"UAE tennis tournaments cancelled following Iranian drone attack"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Two ATP Challenger Tour events in the United Arab Emirates were cancelled after a drone incident near the venue raised safety concerns.<\/p>\n<p>The first of back-to-back Fujairah Open tournaments was suspended midway on Tuesday when an emergency siren sounded, prompting players and officials to evacuate the venue.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">I\u2019ve watched a lot of challenger tennis. This is the scariest thing I\u2019ve seen on court <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/yckUehRnkS\">pic.twitter.com\/yckUehRnkS<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 RacketRisk (@RacketRisk) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/RacketRisk\/status\/2028763972363600307?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 3, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Japanese player Yasutaka Uchiyama, who was competing in the event, confirmed the situation on social media.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe alarm went off and we evacuated from the venue and made it back to the hotel safely,\u201d he wrote on X.<\/p>\n<p>Local media later reported that a fire had broken out in the nearby Fujairah Oil Industry Zone, reportedly caused by falling debris after air defence systems intercepted a drone.<\/p>\n<p>Turkish player Mert Alkaya subsequently shared on Instagram that the ATP had decided to cancel both Fujairah Open tournaments.<\/p>\n<p>The cancelled events were among the latest sporting disruptions linked to escalating tensions in the Middle East following recent military strikes involving the United States, Israel and Iran.<\/p>\n<p>Other competitions affected by the situation included <a href=\"https:\/\/www.spotvnow.com\/read\/afc-champions-league-matches-postponed-after-middle-east-crisis\/\">the Asian Football Confederation\u2019s (AFC) club tournaments involving teams from the West Region<\/a> as well as fixtures in the Qatar Stars League.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Two ATP Challenger Tour events in the United Arab Emirates were cancelled after a drone incident near the venue raised safety concerns. The first of back-to-back Fujairah Open tournaments was suspended midway on Tuesday when an emergency siren sounded, prompting players and officials to evacuate the venue. I\u2019ve watched a lot of challenger tennis. This &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.spotvnow.com\/read\/uae-tennis-tournaments-cancelled-following-iranian-drone-attack\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">UAE tennis tournaments cancelled following Iranian drone attack<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":3873,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[264],"class_list":["post-3871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-top-stories","tag-tennis-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spotvnow.com\/read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spotvnow.com\/read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spotvnow.com\/read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spotvnow.com\/read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spotvnow.com\/read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3871"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.spotvnow.com\/read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3871\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3874,"href":"https:\/\/www.spotvnow.com\/read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3871\/revisions\/3874"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spotvnow.com\/read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spotvnow.com\/read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spotvnow.com\/read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spotvnow.com\/read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}