A massive COVID-shaped wrench has been thrown into the works for those hoping to travel to Melbourne for the Australian Open.
Damn, it was initially going so well for the Australian Open.
Despite a lot of whinging from many tennis pros over having to go into hard lockdown for 14 days after arriving in Melbourne (some of which is justified) and Novak Djokovic causing a bit of a stir with his quarantine requests, several warm up tournaments were able to kick off ahead of the Australian Open’s February 8 start date and players were able to get some valuable match play under their belt.
But then things went pear shaped as the Victorian Government confirmed (via Twitter) that a hotel quarantine worker at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Melbourne had tested positive for COVID-19 on Wednesday night, February 3rd.
It is reported that the worker was serving as a resident support officer as part of the Australian Open quarantine program.
In an emergency late-night press conference (via ABC News), Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has reinstated mandatory face mask rules, reduced the cap on visitors in homes down to 15, and put pause on increasing the number of people allowed at work.
Andrews states that authorities “have to assume that this person has in fact infected others” and warns that everyone who attended exposure sites in Melbourne’s south-east must isolate for 14 days.
As for how this affects the many tennis pros in Melbourne and those who were planning to travel to the city for the Australian Open, well it’s a little bit in the air at the moment.
Over 500 Australian Open players and staff have been identified as casual contacts with the infected hotel worker as they were housed at the Grand Hyatt. All must now self-isolate and produce a negative COVID-19 test before they can resume their usual outdoor activities.
Several players, like Stan Wawrinka and Daniil Medvedev have managed to avoid coming into contact with the infected hotel worker after changing hotels following their initial 14-day quarantine program.
As for the six tournaments currently in action at Melbourne Park, the order of play for Thursday, February 4th, has been completely cancelled in order to deal with this new COVID-19 case.
Friday’s schedule will be released later pending the results of several hundred COVID-19 tests.
This doesn’t exactly inspire a lot of confidence that the Australian Open will go ahead with 50% crowd capacity but let’s just wait and see how it all shakes out for the tournament, the many players and staff, and those hoping to travel down to Melbourne for the tennis.
Victoria has done a great job at keeping a lid on the pandemic so let’s not get too worried about the situation at the moment.
That being said, maybe have some emergency back up plans put in place just in case you were going to travel to Melbourne because we all know how quickly this can escalate in a worst case scenario and you don’t want to be stuck on the wrong side of another border lockdown.
We will work with everyone involved to facilitate testing as quickly as possible.
There will be no matches at Melbourne Park on Thursday. An update on the schedule for Friday will be announced later today. #AusOpen— #AusOpen (@AustralianOpen) February 3, 2021
