Tennis Australia chief Craig Tiley said the Australian Open would start as planned next Monday, despite an employee at one of Melbourne’s hotels quarantining players and their escorts testing positive for COVID-19.
“We are absolutely confident that the Australian Open will move forward,” he told reporters in Melbourne.
“We are starting on Monday.”
Tiley said that players and support staff quarantined at the Grand Hyatt hotel, where the infected man worked, will have their mandatory tests for the new coronavirus completed on Thursday night.
The Grand Slam draw was postponed from Thursday to Friday, Tiley added.
“The draw was set for 6 pm (Thursday), but we postponed it until tomorrow afternoon,” said Open boss Craig Tiley.
“It will be a smaller version of what we did before because the focus is on making the draw and spreading it out so that everyone can start planning what they will do on Monday and who they will watch.”