Tennis-Australian Open Confident On Nadal, Uncertain On Djokovic
Australian Open chief Craig Tiley is
confident Rafa Nadal will be at Melbourne Park for next month’s Grand Slam
despite testing positive for COVID-19, but he is still uncertain whether Novak
Djokovic will be playing.
Nadal caught the novel coronavirus
while playing in an exhibition tournament in Abu Dhabi last week and said he
would make a decision on his future tournaments depending on his “evolution” over the
weeks ahead.
“I’m confident
Rafa will be here,” tournament organiser Tiley said of
the 20-times Grand Slam champion at Melbourne Park on Wednesday.
“Players that
are testing positive now will complete a period of time until they are no
longer infectious and they will be fine. If you are going to test positive and
you want to play the Australian Open, your timing would be now.”
Tiley reiterated that all players
and staff at the Australian Open would be vaccinated or have a medical
exemption granted by an independent panel of experts.
Those requirements have prevented
Djokovic, who has declined to disclose whether he is vaccinated, citing
privacy, from confirming whether he will bid for a 21st Grand Slam title and a
10th Australian Open crown next month.
Tiley said that as far as he was
aware, no players had yet been granted medical exemptions and that it would be
up to Djokovic to disclose the grounds on which he gained entry to Australia.
“If Novak
shows up at the Australian Open, he’ll either be
vaccinated or he’ll have a medical exemption,” he added.
“Medically,
he doesn’t talk to
anyone about it. I’m not going to ask Novak that, it’s none of my
business.
“I will know
that (he fulfils) one of those conditions.”
Tiley said that if the world number
one was going to play for Serbia in the ATP Cup in Sydney in the first week of
January then he would be arriving with the first tranche of players next week.
“We want to
have the best players here, I’d love to have Novak here,” he added. “If he meets
those conditions then great, if not, it’s
disappointing.”
Roger Federer, the other men’s player
with 20 Grand Slam titles, and Serena Williams, who has won 23 Grand Slam
titles, have already ruled themselves out of the tournament as they continue
their recoveries from injury.
Tiley also announced that former
U.S. Open champion Sam Stosur and her fellow Australians Daria Saville and
Maddy Inglis had been granted wildcards for the women’s singles
draw at the Jan. 17-30 tournament.