Chronicle Editor
MELBOURNE — After a three-week delay, a massive logistical mission and a handful of health scares, a very different Australian Open gets underway today with pandemic protocols providing a backdrop of caution to the action on court.
Serena Williams begins her latest campaign to win a record-equalling 24th Grand Slam title on Day One while Novak Djokovic is also in action, the Serb seeking a record-extending ninth Australian Open crown.
Once dubbed the “Happy Slam” by Roger Federer, this year’s edition might be remembered as the “Nervous Slam” after struggling to build enthusiasm in a wary host nation, but organisers hope the anxious buildup will be forgotten when the action begins.
Tennis Australia have made a Herculean effort to try to stage it safely and spent a fortune on biosecurity measures in a country where community transmission of the novel coronavirus has become rare.
It will be the third Grand Slam of the pandemic, with the US and French Opens passing safely enough.
Yet many in Melbourne regard it a pointless risk to the freedoms they earned after spending nearly four months in a brutal lockdown to crush an outbreak last year.
Warmup tournaments that packed out stadiums across the country a year ago have drawn tiny crowds to Melbourne Park over the past week, even with the game’s biggest stars in action.
A smattering of Covid-19 cases among the 1,200 Australian Open players, coaches and other personnel that landed in the country last month did little to build momentum.
News that a worker at one of the tournament’s quarantine hotels caught the virus triggered tighter social restrictions in Melbourne last week and saw 160 players isolate until cleared of infection.
Tournament director Craig Tiley asked media to boost the tuneup events but the modest crowds that turned up on Saturday were denied the chance to watch Williams and other former champions after they pulled out of their matches rather than risk injury ahead of the main event. — Reuters.
Online Reporter