Australian Open 2021: Players warned to follow strict quarantine guidelines or pay the price

The world’s best tennis players have been warned to abide by strict quarantine rules for the Australian Open or face being kicked out of the country.

Victoria is set for a blockbuster summer of tennis. Picture: AAP Image/Dave Hunt

Any tennis player who breaches the Australian Open quarantine rules will be immediately kicked out of the country.

Tournament director Craig Tiley issued the warning to the world’s best on Saturday as the Victorian Government confirmed the February 8 start date for the opening grand slam of 2021.

Players will start arriving from January 15 and go into a two-week hotel quarantine where they will be allowed out for five hours a day to train.

The Justice Department will provide special COVID marshalls to monitor the players’ movements and if they step outside the rules and threaten the safety of Victorians, they will be thrown out of Australia.

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Roger Federer is hoping to be fit for the Australian Open in February. Picture: Greg Wood/AFP

“If there are any breaches the player will be immediately removed from the country as well as being fined,” Tiley said. “Our primary objective is to ensure the community is protected as well as the players themselves.

“The safest place in the world right now is Melbourne and we’re not going to put anyone at any form of risk. We wouldn’t do it unless we could ensure 100 per cent safety .”

Tickets go on sale on Wednesday but the exact crowd size is yet to be determined.

Officials are hopeful of getting 400,000 tennis fans to Melbourne Park over the two-week tournament which would be a 50 per cent decrease from last year’s Open.

“It depends on how we organise the site,” Tiley said. “We had 840,000 people last year so if you take 50 percent off . . . it’s likely to be less than half that depending on how we organise the site.

“This is not a year that we’re going to try and beat numbers, this is a year we’re going to make sure we deliver maximum economic impact to the city.”

Fans will have to reserve a seat on every court with social distancing measures in place although families will be allowed to sit together in a group.

Tiley said if there was a COVID-19 outbreak in the community in the lead-up to the tournament then there was a plan to play the event without crowds.

“If there are challenges in the community and the government isn’t comfortable with people being together then we would have an event without crowds,” he said.

“We don’t expect that to be the case.”

Tiley said he had received an overwhelming response from the players who were all desperate to get to Melbourne.

Serena Williams is expected to chase history at the Australian Open. Picture: William West/AFP

“To this point we have a commitment from every single player in the world to be in Australia,” he said. “That is a magnificent position to be in. Obviously as everyone knows it is the beginning of the season so anything can happen with that entry list but the commitment is there.”

Tennis Australia has spoken to Roger Federer who last week cast doubt on his availability because of a slower then expected recovery from knee surgery.

“He did say to us that February 8 was a more suitable date for him in preparing for the Australian Open but a lot will depend how he responds to the surgery in the next two to three weeks of training,” Tiley said.

“I think all the players (are excited), Serena (Williams) is particularly excited because she has got a record to beat. Rafa (Nadal) and Roger are both on 20 (grand slam titles), Novak Djokovic has been a dominator here, dominated the play here at Melbourne Park and he wants to close the gap between Rafa and Roger.

The ATP has today announced an update to the 2021 ATP Tour calendar, outlining a revised schedule for the first seven weeks of the season.

— ATP Tour (@atptour) December 17, 2020

“A great story is Ash Barty, No.1 in the world, can we come in and have an Australian, either on the women’s or the men’s side, win the Australian Open because it has been a while since the 70s . . . 1977 was the last.”

Qualifying will be held for both men and women in the Middle East, with the men in Doha and the women in Dubai, from January 10.

That will give players enough time to arrive in Australia from January 15 on special chartered flights and then quarantine for 14 days, before lead-up tournaments are held.

A 12-team ATP Cup (February 1-5) and two ATP 250 events (January 31 - February 6) will be held in Melbourne for the men.

For the women, two WTA 500 events will be held from February 1, along with a WTA 250 event during the second week of the Grand Slam, from February 15.

The Australian Open prize money will remain the same as in 2020, with a total pool of $71.5 million. However the distribution will be tweaked with first-round losers receiving $100,000, up 15 per cent on last year.

Australian Open tournament director Craig Tiley has warned players will be kicked out of Australia if they breach quarantine rules. Picture: AAP

Victoria on show to the world

– Peter Rolfe and Scott Gullan

A blockbuster week of tennis will be played in Melbourne in the lead-up to the Australian Open as crowds return to the nation’s sporting capital.

The world’s best tennis stars will step out of quarantine and on to Victorian courts, with a deal between Tennis Australia and the state government imminent. It will extend the contract to keep the Open in Melbourne by three years to 2039.

The government is expected to confirmed as early as Thursday the Open will start on February 8 — a long-rumoured commencement date — three weeks later than scheduled.

International players will be allowed to enter Victoria to quarantine in mid January and step on court for pre-Open matches usually played interstate.

Tennis stars like Naomi Osaka are set to descend on Victoria. Picture: Michael Klein

ATP Cup, WTA and other matches will be staged in Victoria from February 1 at Melbourne Park. The Open will be played until February 21, with players allowed to train during some of their quarantine.

The Herald Sun last month revealed all major tennis events of the summer would be moved to Victoria from Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, Canberra and Hobart in a bid to simplify quarantine and border restrictions.

Tennis Australia wanted to stage several events in regional Victoria before and after the original Australian Open dates of January 18-31 in a move that would have brought up to three months of elite sport.

But drawn out talks with government has restricted the amount of matches that could be played in regional areas such as Traralgon and Bendigo.

The Herald Sun understands concerns over crowd numbers delayed announcements with health authorities also said to be “overly cautious” about what will happen when the international players and their entourages are released from their two-week hotel quarantine.

Tennis Australia and the government declined to comment on Wednesday.

But Australian Open boss Craig Tiley recently said at least 25 per cent of normal crowds would be allowed at Melbourne Park but more were likely if coronavirus ­conditions remained steady.

“I’m pretty confident that if we are sitting at zero and keep it zero all the way through to January, I think the government will look differently at crowds,’’ he said.

The government is under pressure to nail the safety of its hotel quarantine regimen after the deadly second wave of coronavirus in Victoria.

The hotel quarantine inquiry will hand down its final report on Monday.

Originally published as Australian Open 2021: Players warned to follow strict quarantine guidelines or pay the price