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The Australian Open will start on February 8, three weeks later than scheduled, organisers confirmed on Saturday after months of hypothesis over the primary Grand Slam of 2021.
The start date of the primary draw of the event was initially slated for Jan. 18 and organisers have been locked in drawn-out negotiations with the native authorities over COVID-19 well being safety measures.
“This will be a historic Australian Open on so many levels,” event director Craig Tiley mentioned in a press release.
“For the first time in more than 100 years the Australian Open will start in February and we look forward to offering the players what we believe will be one of their best playing experiences in 2021.”
The state of Victoria on Saturday recorded a 50th straight day and not using a case of neighborhood transmitted COVID-19 however many well being restrictions stay in place in Melbourne and worldwide journey into Australia remains to be strictly restricted.
Victoria’s state authorities mentioned that gamers can be examined for COVID-19 prior to departure for Australia and a minimal of 5 instances throughout quarantine, throughout which they might give you the chance to practice for 5 hours a day.
“From the outset, ensuring players have the best possible preparation for the Australian Open, while at all times protecting the precious COVID-free environment that the Victorian community has built … over the past six months, has been paramount,” Tiley added.
This 12 months’s Wimbledon event was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, whereas the U.S. and French Opens went forward with the gamers confined to bio-secure ‘bubbles’, unable to go away their lodge rooms besides to practice and play.
Qualifying for the Melbourne Park event will happen abroad for the primary time — in Dubai for the ladies and Doha for the lads — earlier than the gamers journey to Australia to bear 14 days of quarantine.
After quarantine, there will probably be males’s and ladies’s warm-up occasions in Melbourne to permit gamers some match observe earlier than the start of the Grand Slam.
The ATP Tour on Thursday pre-empted Tennis Australia’s announcement in releasing an replace of its calendar for 2021 revising the primary seven weeks of the season.
The WTA adopted go well with on Saturday, saying two tournaments in Melbourne within the week commencing on Jan. 31 and one other within the second week of the Australian Open for gamers knocked out of the Grand Slam.
The girls’s tour will open its 2021 season with the Abu Dhabi Open beginning on Jan. 5 earlier than Australian Open qualifying within the neighbouring metropolis of Dubai from Jan. 10-13.
Tournaments in Auckland and Shenzhen, China, have been cancelled however will return to the tour in 2022, the WTA mentioned in a press release.
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