BEVERLY HILLS, February 04, (THEWILL) – Organisers of the Australian Open have assured all concerned and tennis fans across the world that the first Grand Slam of the year will keep to its schedule. This assurance became necessary after a staff at one of the Melbourne hotels used to quarantine players tested positive for COVID-19, as reported by THEWILL on Wednesday.
The detection of the coronavirus case at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in a quarantine worker linked to the players threatened to detail the meticulous preparations that Tennis Australia had put into making the Open Down Under free from the pandemic and the sacrifices of players and their crews during the hotel quarantine.
Following health guidelines, Thursday’s warm-up matches at Melbourne Park were cancelled after the case was announced late on Wednesday. All those who were quarantined at the hotel were immediately instructed to get tested and isolate until they returned a negative test.
As a precaution, the eagerly-anticipated draw for the year’s first major tournament was put back from Thursday to Friday by which time the results from the tests would have been returned and those tested would know their fates.
Speaking of the case, tournament director and CEO of Tennis Australia, Craig Tiley, said of the 507 people concerned, 160 of them were players. They were to have completed their tests by late Thursday afternoon. As a result, he was confident that the slight setback was not going to alter much of the schedule.
“This does give us three days for the lead-in events to be completed,” he said.
“The probability is very low that there’ll be an issue. We expect them all to test negative. The plan is to continue to play tomorrow as planned.
“If the results all come back negative, the players would be free to participate in the six warm-up events at Melbourne Park – the site of the Australian Open main draw – to allow them to get some match practice after 14 days in quarantine.
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About the schedule for Friday, which is forecasted to be a wet day, Tiley said: “With the rain, we do have the luxury of having three stadium courts and eight indoor courts. That will enable us to not get ahead but at least be able to finish by Sunday.”
Health officials in Victoria State also said the testing of the tennis cohort was purely precautionary but extremely necessary. In assuring everyone of the need not to panic, one of the officials, Professor Allen Cheng, said: “We think the risk to other guests in the hotel – tennis players and their accompanying staff – is relatively low.”
However, the Premier of the State, Dan Andrews, was in no mood to be diplomatic about where his priorities lie should ever it come down to making a choice between the games and public health. He insisted that the community is paramount and there were “no guarantees” the Australian Open would go ahead.
“At this stage, the tennis shouldn’t be impacted by this,” Andrews said. “These things can change (but) this has been a textbook response to this.”
The positive case at the hotel took a political tone when Michael O’Brien, the leader of the opposition in Victoria’s state parliament, called on the government to make a decision on whether the tournament would go ahead, latest by Saturday, when he spoke to Melbourne’s Herald Sun newspaper.
“We don’t want to see a situation as we did with the Grand Prix, where crowds were literally turning up, only to be turned away,” he was reported as saying. “I think people are entitled to know what’s happening, and the government should be making their minds up in the next 24 to 48 hours.”
About the Author
Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
