Organisers defiant over Australian Open start

AUSTRALIAN Open organisers remain confident of starting the grand slam tournament on schedule on Monday.

No matches in the six warm-up events being held at Melbourne Park were played on Thursday after an employee at one of the hotels used for the two weeks of quarantine tested positive for the coronavirus on Wednesday.

More than 500 players and support staff deemed casual contacts are having to isolate until they receive a negative test but all the matches scheduled for Thursday have been moved to Friday, where forecast rain presents another headache.

Tournament director Craig Tiley told a press conference: “This does give us three days for the lead-in events to complete. Obviously tomorrow we’ve got some challenging weather, so we’ve got to work around that as well, and the intention is to start the Australian Open on Monday.

“We’re absolutely confident the Australian Open’s going to go ahead. We know we’ve got a period now we’ve got to work through with those players and their staff that needed tests.

“The probability is very low that there’s going to be any issue, we fully expect them all to test negative.

“If we have to go through this again, we’ll go through this again.

“We’ve got another three and a half weeks of tennis and fully expect to keep to the original schedule once we get past today.”

Tiley and his team have spent months negotiating arrangements to allow the tournament to happen, including funding charter flights and quarantine hotels for players and their support teams.

He added: “We want this to happen and we’ll do whatever to make it happen.”