The Australian Open may still be more than seven months away but discussions are already underway about how to stage the event in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.
All professional tennis tournaments have been suspended due to the virus, which has infected more than two million worldwide and killed thousands. The ATP, WTA and ITF are currently in discussions about when they will be able to resume the Tours with one source suggestion that there will be no play until at least August. The month where the US Open is set to get underway. Although there are doubts about that happening given that New York is the epicenter of the outbreak in America.
Craig Tiley, who is the tournament director of the Australian Open, has confirmed that they are looking at various ways to stage their event next year. Including the possibility of holding it behind closed doors. An approach that has been ruled out by the USTA, which runs the US Open. Speaking to The Age newspaper, Tiley outlined four potential scenarios. Including using the Australian Open as the event to kickstart the Tour should no more play resume in 2020.
“We’d love that,” Tiley said. “It’s one of our scenarios.
“Another scenario is to return without a crowd – like the AFL are talking now, and the NRL.
“Another scenario is to [play] at another time of the year potentially and another scenario is the worst-case one – that there’s no Australian Open until 2022.
“We’ve got to prepare for all of them. We’ve got to build a financial model for all of them.
“The good news is that we had an event this year so we had some cash, but that dries up quickly if we have no revenue.”
It remains to be seen what option may come about, but the general consensus is that it will be weeks before the players are competing on the tour again. World No.2 Rafael Nadal said on Monday that he was ‘very pessimistic’ that tennis would return to normal anytime soon. Meanwhile, Andy Murray said he would be ‘surprised’ if the tour returned mid-September. The time when both the US Open and French Open tournaments are set to take place.
“I would imagine tennis would be one of the last sports to get back to normality because you’ve obviously got players and coaches and teams coming from all over the world into one area,” Murray told CNN.
“I would be surprised if they were back playing sport by September-time,” he added.
Should the Australian Open get cancelled, they do have the luxury of a pandemic insurance. A critical factor when it came to Wimbledon’s decision to cancel their event for the first time since 1945. However, Tiley has confirmed that the pandemic cover expires this summer and negotiations are underway.
“We have two kinds of insurance – we have a reserve fund and then we purchased insurance on top of that. Because a reserved fund can’t cover everything,” he explained.
“But now we’re in discussions with the same insurer on what the future looks like.
“And it’s interesting. Because insurers need to make a decision – will they insure against a pandemic?
“Probably is now a good time to do it [for insurers] because the world’s going to be ready for another one if there ever was one.
“After this pandemic is over, the likelihood of that happening – the way the world’s going to have to mobilise and stop it again – would be very unlikely.
“We have been covered and we have to be covered in a different way from ’21 onwards.”
The last time the Australian Open didn’t take place was in 1986 due to a change in it’s hosting date from December to January. Founded in 1905, it is the youngest out of the four grand slam tournaments.
