Tennis: Aussie warm-up events hit as 600 players and support staff isolate after Covid-19 case

MELBOURNE (REUTERS) - Up to 600 tennis players and support staff connected to the Australian Open will have to isolate until they have been tested for Covid-19 after a hotel quarantine worker in Melbourne returned a positive result for the coronavirus on Wednesday (Feb 3).

Play at the six warm-up events for the Grand Slam at Melbourne Park was heavily disrupted with organisers Tennis Australia cancelling all matches for Thursday.

"There is a number of about 500, 600 people who are players and officials and others who are casual contacts," he said at a news conference late on Wednesday.

"They will be isolating until they get a negative test and that work will be done tomorrow."

Victoria, of which Melbourne is the capital, reintroduced the compulsory wearing of masks in indoor public places from Thursday, while private gatherings were reduced from 30 people to 15.

About 1,200 players, coaching staff and officials arrived in Australia at the middle of last month for the year's first Grand Slam and went into a mandatory 14-day isolation.

The players were allowed five hours outside for training but 72 of them were confined to hotel rooms for the two weeks, after passengers on three charter flights taking them to Australia tested positive to the coronavirus.

Participants of the Australian Open were given the green light to begin exiting Covid-19 quarantine from end of last week, with most of them involved at the ATP and WTA events at the site of the hard-court major.

"At this stage there is no impact on the tournament proper," Mr Andrews added. "I must say (the Australian Open) is important to us but the issues are much broader and that is about public health and public safety."

Tennis Australia, which is the organiser of the Feb 8-21 Grand Slam, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.