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Tag: aus open 2021

  • Australian Open 2021 to proceed with out followers regardless of Melbourne lockdown

    Image Source : GETTY IMAGES Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews on Friday confirmed Melbourne could be locked down from midnight.
    Spectators is not going to be allowed on the Australian Open as Melbourne heads into a tough five-day lockdown introduced by the Victorian authorities in response to the Holiday Inn Covid-19 cluster.
    Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews on Friday confirmed Melbourne could be locked down from midnight. However, the Grand Slam will go forward with out followers within the stands from Saturday till Wednesday.

    “The Victorian government has announced a five-day lockdown commencing at 11.59 p.m. on Friday. Australian Open sessions today and tonight will continue as planned with COVIDSafe protocols in place,” Tennis Australia mentioned in a press release.
    “We are notifying ticketholders, players and staff that there will be no fans onsite at the AO for five days, commencing from Saturday 13 February,” it added.

    The organisers additional mentioned that full refunds could be accessible for anybody who has tickets for these periods and they might be suggested on the way to apply as quickly as potential.
    “The AO broadcast-only contingency plan will commence from Saturday until restrictions are lifted. Play will continue uninterrupted on the broadcast, albeit without spectators onsite,” the assertion learn.
    A cap of 30,000 followers per day — round 50 per cent of the same old attendance determine — had been enforced because the yr’s first grand slam started on Monday.
    The girls’s ultimate is scheduled for Saturday night subsequent week, and the boys’s decider for the Sunday.

  • Naomi Osaka, Victoria Azarenka withdraw from Australian Open tuneup tournaments

    Image Source : GETTY IMAGES No. 3-ranked Osaka pulled out of her Gippsland Trophy semifinal in opposition to Elise Mertens, citing a “niggling damage.”
    Former Australian Open champions Naomi Osaka and Victoria Azarenka withdrew from tuneup tournaments Saturday, two days earlier than the 12 months’s first tennis main begins at Melbourne Park.
    No. 3-ranked Osaka pulled out of her Gippsland Trophy semifinal in opposition to Elise Mertens, citing a “niggling damage.”

    Azarenka withdrew from the Grampians Trophy quarterfinal match in opposition to Anett Kontaveit with a decrease again downside.
    Serena Williams withdrew from the Yarra Valley Classic late Friday after qualifying for a semifinal in opposition to top-ranked Ash Barty.

    All worldwide gamers and workers have been by two weeks of quarantine. Organizers placed on six tournaments this week at Melbourne Park to provide gamers time to organize for the Australian Open, which has been delayed three weeks due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
    U.S. Open champion Osaka and Serena Williams, who’s chasing a document twenty fourth Grand Slam singles title, are on the identical half of the draw on the Australian Open.
    “Sorry to Tennis Australia and the fans to have to withdraw today,” Osaka mentioned. “I have a niggling injury and in light of the (Australian Open) on the horizon, I need to be cautious. I look forward to competing next week.”
    Her withdrawal provides Mertens a walkover into the ultimate.
    The withdrawals compelled a reshuffle of the order of play on Margaret Court Arena. Former champion Angelique Kerber was moved as much as meet fifth-seeded Maria Sakkari.

  • Serena visits zoo earlier than an Adelaide exhibition match win; Djokovic on court docket

    Serena Williams was making ready to play Naomi Osaka at an Adelaide exhibition match on Friday. But first issues first _ after 14 days in quarantine due to the COVID-19 pandemic rules in Australia, the 23-time Grand Slam singles champion took her daughter to the zoo.
    Williams stated she’d been crossing off the 14 days of quarantine on a calendar, having spent the time together with her three-year-old daughter Olympia.
    “We went to the zoo,” Williams stated of her first actions outdoors of quarantine. “I’m so glad it’s over as a result of to be in a room (for thus lengthy) with a three-year-old and being her finest good friend is unquestionably tough, particularly after coaching and understanding.
    “Honestly, I wouldn’t trade anything, spending hours and hours and hours with her was really fun.”
    The go to will need to have been an excellent pre-match tonic for Williams. She beat Osaka 6-2, 2-6, 10-7. Both gamers confirmed apparent indicators of rustiness, hitting set-up winners out of play or netting comparatively straightforward photographs.
    “Thanks every one for having us. We honestly haven’t played in front of a crowd for over a year, it’s been a really long time, so this is really cool,” Williams stated.
    She acknowledged the powerful 14-day quarantine restrictions that had been in place to permit the Australian Open to happen starting Feb. 8.
    “Thanks for trusting us with your laws, (it) was great,” Williams added. “We were so happy just to be here, and now it’s worth it.”
    Earlier Friday, top-ranked Novak Djokovic missed the beginning of his scheduled exhibition match in opposition to rising Italian expertise Jannick Sinner, who was Rafael Nadal’s quarantine apply companion. Djokovic received therapy for a blister on his proper hand, leaving Sinner to play Filip Krajinovic, however the eight-time Australian Open champion arrived on court docket firstly of the second set to cheers from the group.
    Krajinovic received the primary set 6-3 and Djokovic the second by the identical rating to provide the Serbian tag-team victory.“I am sorry that I didn’t step on on the court from the beginning, I had to do some treatment with my physio,” Djokovic advised the group in a post-match interview. “I wanted to play, I wanted to get out there.”
    A tv close-up had earlier confirmed a big blister on the palm of his Djokovic’s proper hand, the place his racket would sit.
    “It’s part of what we do, we learn over the years to play with the pain,” Djokovic stated. “But I saw the crowds and the emotion was so strong for me to come out, I had to play.”
    A number of hours earlier, Djokovic, who has already had COVID-19, celebrated the tip of his quarantine with a barefoot stroll in an area park.
    “Just putting bare feet on the ground,” he stated. “Just doing something that I didn’t have a chance to do. So just having space, that is what we all kind of missed.”
    Nadal and Dominic Thiem, who’ve received the previous two majors performed in Paris and New York, had been scheduled to start out the evening session Friday at Adelaide earlier than girls’s No. 1 Ash Barty took on Simona Halep. It might be Barty’s first match in 11 months.
    The Adelaide match is the one Australian Open tune-up match that isn’t being performed in Melbourne. The others, together with the ATP Cup and three WTA occasions, will begin getting underway from Sunday.
    In Melbourne, the primary of the gamers to go away quarantine had been greeted with the town’s usually fickle climate _ rain showers.
    The National Tennis Centre at Melbourne Park has eight indoor courts and officers had been anticipated to be inundated with requests from gamers, notably those that have been in laborious lockdown, for court docket time.
    Those 72 gamers, who had been on board the identical three constitution flights because the 9 passengers who examined constructive to COVID-19, have been unable to go away their rooms whereas others have been in a position to prepare for as much as 5 hours a day.
    Tennis Australia chief government Craig Tiley stated gamers who had been in laborious lockdown could be given precedence.
    “We’re going to have a great deal of empathy for supporting those who have been in hard lockdown and I’ve already made that commitment to them,” Tiley stated.

  • Australian Open: Tennys Sandgren will get OK to fly to Melbourne regardless of COVID-19 consequence

    Image Source : GETTY IMAGES File picture of Tennys Sandgren.
    Tennys Sandgren compelled an early clarification of the COVID-19 guidelines as the primary of 15 constitution flights started flying Down Under to ship gamers for the Australian Open.
    The two-time Australian Open quarterfinalist was given a particular clearance to board one of many flights from Los Angeles to Melbourne regardless of testing constructive to COVID-19 in November and once more on Monday.
    The first of about 1,200 gamers, coaches, entourage and officers had been set to land Thursday in Australia.
    Under event protocols agreed with Australian authorities authorities, all gamers needed to to return a unfavorable take a look at earlier than boarding their flights to Australia and can be subjected to additional testing on arrival and each day throughout a 14-day interval of quarantine.
    The No. 50-ranked Sandgren received an exemption after Australian well being officers assessed his case historical past.
    The American participant posted on social media to say he wasn’t contagious and was allowed to affix a delayed flight.
    “My two tests were less than 8 weeks apart. I was sick in November, totally healthy now,” Sandgren tweeted. “There’s not a single documented case where I would be contagious at this point. Totally recovered!”
    The Australian newspaper printed a web-based story headlined “US tennis ace sparks Aus Open virus fear.
    Tennis Australia moved to make clear the scenario in a press release Thursday that outlined gamers who’ve beforehand examined constructive to COVID-19 had been “required to provide additional and highly detailed medical information as proof they are a recovered case and no longer infectious or a risk to the community.”
    Tennis Australia added: “In the case of Tennys Sandgren, who has self-disclosed that he previously tested positive in late November, his medical file had to be reviewed by Victorian (state government) health authorities. Upon completion of that review he was cleared to fly.”
    The Australian Open has already been delayed three weeks as a result of restrictions in place for the COVID-19 pandemic, and is ready to open on Feb. 8.

    On Wednesday, almost 12,000 kilometers (7,500 miles) from Melbourne, the qualifying event was accomplished for the event, with 16 males and 16 girls set to affix the singles principal draw.
    The season’s first main has already been delayed by three weeks due to restrictions in place for the pandemic, and the lads’s and girls’s qualifying tournaments — in Doha, Qatar and in Dubai — had been held outdoors of Australia for the primary time.
    The girls qualifiers embody two-time Australian Open and Roland Garros doubles champion Timea Babos of Hungary and British participant Francesca Jones, who has a uncommon genetic situation.
    Jones has ectrodactyly ectodermal dysplasia, which suggests she was born with three fingers and a thumb on every hand, three toes on her proper foot and 4 toes on her left.
    On the lads’s facet, the qualifiers embody 17-year-old ATP newcomer of the yr, Carlos Alcaraz of Spain.
    Six girls and 6 males may even journey to Australia as fortunate losers and bear necessary quarantine like the remainder of the worldwide gamers, hoping to get a spot in the principle draw as cowl for accidents or withdrawals. There are 104 direct entries primarily based on rankings for the lads’s and girls’s singles principal draw, plus wild-card entries and the qualifiers.
    The 15 flights might be at not more than 25% capability, and can arrive over a 36-hour interval ending early Saturday.
    Once a unfavorable consequence has been returned, gamers can prepare inside a strictly supervised atmosphere for five-hours per day, and gamers and their groups might be examined daily throughout quarantine.
    The Australian Open draw might be held on Feb. 4, 4 days forward of the beginning of the principle event, which ends Feb. 21 with the lads’s singles last.
    Novak Djokovic is the defending males’s champion and Sofia Kenin is the ladies’s defending champion.
    Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Serena Williams might be amongst a gaggle of gamers concerned in an exhibition occasion in Adelaide, South Australia state, on Jan. 29. All different tournaments might be in Melbourne, together with the 12-team ATP Cup beginning Feb. 1 and two WTA occasions within the week main into the Australian Open.