Australia’s plan to reopen borders paused amidst the new Covid-19 variant, Australian Open yet to comment
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Craig Tiley - Director of the Australian Open
The 2022 Australian Open continues to face problems. With some regularity hoped in the coming weeks, the new variant of Covid-19 has again seemed to have caused new issues in the organising of the tournament. With Melbourne already in lockdown and players forced to undergo quarantine and expected to arrive during the Christmas break, the new restrictions might impact the schedule.
With WHO issuing strong warnings against the new variant Omicron, the Australian government is set to pause its plans of reopening the borders to the vaccinated visa holders. The earlier date was set at December 1 to reopen the borders but given the new developments, a delay is set to be in motion and the new date is set at December 15 as reported by news.com.au.
While the decision has received mixed responses from the citizens given a sudden change in dates that will now affect quite a lot of things within the country, the Australian Open is yet to comment on whether new changes will be implied for the players coming to Australia for the Grand Slam next year which is scheduled from 17th to 30th January.
Australian Open chief Craig Tiley firm on vaccination status of players
Australian Open director Craig Tiley had recently spoken about the current planning of the tournament which is now set to begin in less than 50 days. While it has been confirmed that no players, staff or spectators without vaccination will be allowed on the premises, he also declared the schedule of the Australian summer.
“No, it’s hasn’t been easy. It started right after the first day of the Australian Open this year and planning through many more complications, but we’re very pleased to announce a full schedule- 17 professional events starting January 1 across Adelaide, Sydney and Melbourne. Everything is on track for a great summer.
“We knew when we announced the event that there were going to be more challenges because this is the nature of the world we’ve been living in since the last 2 years. But we’re still waiting- I’ve been talking to the government overnight and there are still a lot of unanswered questions so I think in the next 14 days we’ll have some more clarity.
“But at this point, the plans are going as they are. We’re looking forward to a 100% capacity crowd in January,” said Tiley reassuring that the Grand Slam should go ahead as per schedule.
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Sarthak Shitole
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