Craig Tiley’s warning for Australian Open

Australian Open boss warns that top players will not tolerate another hard quarantine.

Tennis players in the foyer of Pullman Albert Park Hotel during their quarantine period in January Picture: NCA NewsWire

As Ash Barty fights for the Wimbledon crown, Tennis Australia boss Craig Tiley said Australia needs to loosen up if it wants to attract the world’s best to Melbourne next year for the Australian Open.

Following the news the Formula One Grand Prix would not go ahead in Melbourne this year, Tiley said he understood the reasons for the F1 decision but the conversations between government and tennis had been very different.

This year’s Australian Open was controversial in the harsh quarantine measures for players which limited their ability to train and also saw distinction between the top ranks like Serena Williams who stayed in Adelaide under superior conditions compared to the lower ranked players in Melbourne.

Since that grand slam, players have been participating in tournaments around the world under different conditions including a “minimised risk environment” bubble at Wimbledon, where everyone stays at the same hotel and travels to and from the courts each day via bus.

The same arrangement was in place at the French Open and vaccinations are also offered at every event.

Tiley said players have enjoyed “a lot more freedom” since the Australian Open and Tennis Australia needed to present players with an environment they would be willing to endure to make the long trip to Australia.

“I think again to get the players to accept to be 14 days in a room unable to be high performing athletes, unable to prepare in an appropriate way leading into a grand slam, is something that we’re not going to be able to do with them,” he told 3AW.

“A hard lockdown of 14 days in preparing for the Australian Open is going to be extremely difficult to pull off and whether or not the playing group accepts that remains to be seen. But at this point in our initial conversations with them, that’s not something that they are going to be open to simply because that’s not what they’re currently doing around the world.”

He said next year’s Australian Open would be dependent on the vaccination rate and players’ acceptance of conditions but he had been assured by sports Minister Martin Pakula and Premier Daniel Andrews that the government was entirely focused on making the tournament work.

“We think it’s important to happen and the $400m direct economic impact that we bring to the state in that three week period is something that we want to continue to do,” he said.

Tiley said tennis bodies needed a good indication of arrangements by September.

Former world No. 8 John Alexander said Australians liked to portray themselves to the world as swashbuckling, happy-go-lucky, fearless and generally welcoming but the attitudes displayed during the pandemic were the antithesis to this front.

“We’re the greatest paranoid, scaredy-cats of all time,” he said.

Alexander suggested pushing the Open to December 2022 to ensure security and to create a bigger sporting festival with the 2023 tournament in January.