MELBOURNE • With quarantine over for the 1,200 participants, both players and staff, who have travelled to Melbourne for the Australian Open, the preparations begin when a packed week of warm-up events gets under way today.
World No. 1 Ashleigh Barty and 23-time Grand Slam winner Serena Williams headline two WTA tournaments – the Yarra Valley Classic and the Gippsland Trophy – which start on the Melbourne Park courts normally reserved for the first Grand Slam of the year.
Tennis Australia has arranged six events before the Australian Open, to allow players some match action after two weeks of being confined to their hotel rooms.
Most of the players were able to train for up to five hours a day during their isolation, but 72 of them were placed under a strict quarantine after fellow passengers on their charter flights to Australia tested positive for Covid-19.
Tennis Australia chief Craig Tiley said those players would be given priority treatment the next few days and he was confident they would be ready for the start of the Australian Open on Feb 8.
“We’ve given nine days between them coming out of quarantine to when they really need to play at the Australian Open,” he told reporters at Melbourne Park yesterday. “While in an athlete’s mind, that might not be perfectly ideal, it is enough time to be as ready as you possibly can.”
Fans of men’s tennis will have to wait until tomorrow to get their first fix of the action when the Murray River Open and Great Ocean Road Open ATP warm-ups get under way, also at the same venue.
Australia’s 47th-ranked Nick Kyrgios leads the field at the Murray River but the men’s draws at those lead-up events are weaker.
That is because the biggest stars like the top-ranked Novak Djokovic, 20-time Slam winner Rafa Nadal and US Open champion Dominic Thiem will be representing their countries in the ATP Cup.
The truncated 12-team tournament was pushed back until Tuesday to allow the players more time to prepare.
Serbia, featuring Djokovic, will take on Canada, powered by Milos Raonic and Denis Shapovalov, in the opening contest.
World No. 7 Alexander Zverev will spearhead Germany – also in the same Group A – and the US Open finalist is confident he can challenge for a maiden Major despite a mounting personal toll off the court.
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30,000
Fans allowed into Melbourne Park each day.
Since falling agonisingly short in New York to Thiem, he has endured a tumultuous period, including allegations of domestic abuse by a former girlfriend and a recent split with coach David Ferrer.
But Zverev remains buoyed by his strong showings in the Majors last year, including a semi-final finish at the Australian Open.
“I worked extremely hard in the off-season,” he said. “I’d like to think that I did everything I could to be as well -prepared as I can be.
“We’ll know exactly where I’m at, my level and what I need to improve (after the ATP Cup).”
The ATP Cup will be open to fans and so will the Australian Open. Organisers yesterday confirmed that up to 30,000 fans a day will be allowed into Melbourne Park.
The limit will be reduced to 25,000 over the last five days as there are fewer matches, but this will be the biggest crowd at a tennis event since the ATP and WTA Tours were shut down last March.
Victoria state sports minister Martin Pakula yesterday said that it was a testament to how well authorities have contained Covid-19, adding: “It’ll mean that over the 14 days, we will have up to 390,000 people here at Melbourne Park and that’s about 50 per cent of the average over the last three years.
“It will not be the same as the last few years, but it will be the most significant international event with crowds that the world has seen in many, many months.”
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, REUTERS