Not the end of crowds

AUSTRALIAN Open organisers have told players they are “still hopeful” that crowds will return from Thursday as the tournament continues on “as normal” after a COVID scare.

Tickets for the final four days of the Australian Open remained on sale on Sunday night. Victoria’s statewide lockdown is scheduled to end at 11.59pm on Wednesday.

Fake crowd noise has been added to the television broadcast of matches since fans were banned over the weekend, but organisers are working towards the return of real crowd noise from Thursday.

“We are still hopeful of crowds returning from Thursday

when the lockdown ends,” organisers wrote in a memo sent to players on Sunday.

“While we continue to work with the authorities towards this we have introduced some enhancements to the broadcast to give the fans at home a more realistic experience.”

The memo came after Victorian health authorities dismissed any cause for concern over a tennis player’s positive COVID-19 test.

Greece ATP Cup player Michail Pervolarakis departed Melbourne last Tuesday night before returning a positive test in South Africa on Saturday.

Pervolarakis (pictured) had played in the ATP lead-up event before the Australian Open and was a close contact of Stefanos Tsitsipas, who has a fourthround match scheduled on Monday. However, Pervolarakis returned a negative test before leaving Melbourne last Tuesday. All indications are that he contracted the virus en route to South Africa.

He travelled to his final destination via Doha in the virusravaged Middle East. Victoria’s chief health officer Brett Sutton said that it was unlikely Pervolarakis had contracted the virus in Melbourne and the test could also be a false positive given the lesser accuracy of rapid testing in other countries.

“I don’t think so,” Sutton said when asked if he was concerned about the positive result. “There are countries that do rapid antigen testing. Not as sensitive, not as specific as the nasal nasopharyngeal PCR swabs that we do.

“This particular individual tested negative on the day of departure, but was on a long flight, mixed with other international travellers. Again, with a significant risk of cases, potentially, on the subsequent legs of that flight.

“We will go through the normal processes through the national incident room and go through all of the information that South Africa can provide and we’ll tie off those ends. But I don’t think it’s a real result.”

Tennis Australia boss Craig Tiley said organisers had passed on all available information about Pervolarakis to Victorian health authorities.

All players still in the tournament are only allowed to travel directly to and from Melbourne Park from where they are staying during Victoria’s lockdown.

“Anyone on site that has any symptoms related to COVID is required to immediately isolate and test,” Tiley said.

“We haven’t had any of that. We will go through the normal procedures and take the advice from health (authorities).”