Galaxy of tennis stars to descend on Melbourne Park for Australian Open warm-up tournaments

The location for the Australian Open’s lead-in events has been revealed, with the fan experience to be a little different

World No 1 Novak Djokovic will headline a smorgasboard of talent at Melbourne Park next month Picture: AFP

Tennis fans will be zoned in three pockets of Melbourne Park for the Australian Open’s lead-in tournaments in a dress rehearsal for how the grand slam will operate.

The home of Australian tennis will be the scene of a smorgasbord of action even before the Open starts on February 8, with five ATP and WTA events scheduled for the week previous.

Those tournaments would typically be spread across the country rather than all being in Melbourne, but the dramatic COVID-19 circumstances led to a unique event structure in 2021.

Australian Open tournament director Craig Tiley said it was a priority to provide as many competitive opportunities for the players as possible.

“It’s been an incredibly difficult year for everyone, and the players have had limited opportunity to compete throughout 2020,” Tiley said.

“These additional events will be vital to their Australian Open preparation.”

Ticket-holders won’t be able to move between the zones on the same day, meaning they’ll have to be selective about what they want to watch once matches begin on January 31.

20-times grand slam champion Rafael Nadal could play in the ATP Cup again this year. Picture: Dave Hunt/AAP

Rod Laver Arena will be exclusively used for the ATP Cup, which pits 12 top-tier tennis nations against one another, across four round-robin groups, between February 1 and 5.

Defending champion Serbia, Spain, Austria, Russia, Greece, Germany, Argentina, Italy, Japan, France, Canada and wildcard entrant Australia are expected to be the countries involved.

Some of those ATP Cup matches will spill onto Melbourne Park’s western courts, where adjacent WTA 500 and ATP 250 events will also be held.

There will be 64-player singles and 32-player doubles draws at the non-ATP Cup tournaments, with organisers tipping strong fields.

Women’s tennis fans will want to buy tickets for the newly named John Cain Arena (formerly Melbourne Arena) and Melbourne Park’s eastern courts, with only WTA matches being played there.

Another WTA 250 event is locked in for Melbourne Park during the second week of the Australian Open, starting on February 13.

Australia’s world No.1 Ash Barty will be one of the major drawcards this summer. Picture: Michael Klein

Regional Victoria largely missed out on their piece of the pie, although Traralgon will host two all-Australian junior events.

There will also be two wheelchair tournaments at Hume Tennis Centre, from February 3-6 and 8-11, ahead of the Open.

The Australian Open’s qualifying events will be hosted overseas for the first time, in Doha and Dubai, between January 10 and 13.

Sixteen qualifiers and six alternates will then travel to Melbourne to enter a 14-day quarantine period.

Any player competing in the Open must enter quarantine by January 16 and return a negative coronavirus test 48 hours before flying to Australia as part of strict protocols.

Players will need to return another negative test on arrival before being able to practice from day two, and will be subjected to regular nasopharyngeal PCR tests, as well as PCR saliva tests, in quarantine.

Ticket release dates and crowd capacity for the lead-in events are still to be determined.