Adelaide exhibition for top players

Djokovic, Nadal, Halep, Osaka among those who will quarantine there before Aussie Open

SYDNEY • Tennis' top stars will quarantine in Adelaide rather than Melbourne and play an exhibition there ahead of the Australian Open, with the city also hosting a WTA event after the year's first Grand Slam, organisers said yesterday.

Some 1,270 players and support staff are due to arrive in Melbourne on charter flights late next week, where they will have to spend a mandatory 14 days in quarantine.

But, with hotel rooms in the city scarce, Australian Open chief Craig Tiley said he had approached the South Australian government about taking some of them.

Matters were further complicated when a hotel in Melbourne that was due to accommodate players pulled out on Tuesday, reportedly because of concerns from residents.

With little benefit to Adelaide from putting its community at risk of coronavirus by housing players, an exhibition featuring the top names in the game was suggested as an enticement.

"It would be a benefit if they played an exhibition tournament just before they came to Melbourne, so the premier (Steven Marshall) has agreed to host 50 people in a quarantine bubble and then have those players play an exhibition," Tiley told Tennis Channel.

An official statement announcing the Jan 29 "A Day at the Drive" exhibition said it would feature the world's top three men - Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Dominic Thiem - and two of the top three women in Simona Halep and Naomi Osaka.

World No. 1 Ashleigh Barty was not included, but 23-time Grand Slam winner Serena Williams was, with two more players to be added to the field.

"The conditions of the quarantine will be the same (as Melbourne)," said Tiley, with players allowed out of their rooms for only five hours to practise and train in a bio-secure bubble.

"They'll be in a different hotel and a smaller cohort and travel direct to Adelaide. We think this is a great opportunity to launch before we go into the season."

They would then head to Melbourne Park for the 12-team ATP Cup, along with two WTA tournaments and two ATP events being played from Jan 31 ahead of the Australian Open on Feb 8.

Organisers also announced an extra WTA 500 tournament in Adelaide after the Australian Open, from Feb 22-27, with 70 players taking part.

"These two tournaments are a real coup for South Australia," Marshall said in a news release.

"This is a real show of support for the way that South Australia has managed the Covid-19 pandemic and underlines our ability to attract world-class events."

However, France's Jeremy Chardy, ranked 72nd in the world, was not happy with the decision on the Adelaide tournament and feared that top players isolating in the city would benefit from extra privileges.

The Sydney Morning Herald said the Adelaide hotel, with gym facilities, would offer much better accommodation for the players than those on offer in Melbourne.

"This announcement for the top threes is a bit out of the blue, and it's weird, to put it mildly," he told L'Equipe.

"They will even be able to benefit from a gym at the hotel and will be able to do their exercises, which will not count towards the five-hour quota."

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, REUTERS

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Sunday Times on January 10, 2021, with the headline Adelaide exhibition for top players. Subscribe