Stand: 12:02 p.m. | Reading time: 3 minutes
Fans were already allowed at the preparation tournament in Adelaide
What: REUTERS
The Australian Open will start three weeks later than planned due to the corona pandemic. In return, 30,000 fans can watch the games live in the stadiums every day. The reason is the low number of infections, the Minister of Sport chooses big words.
IYour video went viral very quickly. Julia Putinseva hits the tennis ball again and again, preparing for the Australian Open. The Russian’s training was anything but ordinary. The 26-year-old is standing in her hotel room and thunders the ball against a mattress that she has leaned against a wall.
Training that was so necessary because of the strict quarantine conditions in the Australian state of Victoria. Like all other professionals who start at the Australian Open, Putinseva first had to go into isolation after entering the country.
She passed the time with hotel room training and wrote on Instagram: “Preparing for the Grand Slam tournament.” The isolation seems to have been worth it, because despite the corona pandemic, tennis professionals in Melbourne will be able to play in front of many fans.
From February 8, up to 30,000 spectators will be allowed to visit the site every day to watch the games live. This announced the Minister of Sport of the State of Victoria, Martin Pakula, on Saturday on Twitter. “It will be the most significant international crowds event the world has seen in many, many months,” he added in a televised statement.
“Will have an incredible atmosphere”
The first Grand Slam of the year starts three weeks later than usual due to the pandemic. For the first eight days of the tournament, the capacity in Melbourne Park should be capped to 30,000 spectators per day and night, in the last six days the number should drop to 25,000 visitors per day, said Pakula. “That means that when we near the end of the tournament we will have an incredible atmosphere in the Rod Laver Arena that will not be so different from the atmosphere we have experienced at all the Open in recent years have, ”said the Minister.
A total of around 390,000 people are expected. That’s about 50 percent of the average compared to the past three years, he said.
There are currently 23 people infected with the coronavirus in Victoria who are in quarantine. Only one new case has been added in the past 24 hours. Australia has so far gotten through the corona pandemic relatively lightly. According to the Johns Hopkins University, around 28,800 infections and 909 deaths have been registered in the country with around 25 million inhabitants. Before Christmas, there had been no detected new infections at all in a period of around seven weeks.
Strict quarantine rules therefore apply to all tennis professionals and their supervisors so that the Australian Open can begin in front of spectators on February 8th as the first Grand Slam tournament of the year. Melbourne had one of the toughest lockdowns in the world. The exit restriction applied from the beginning of July for a total of 112 days. At that time, almost 200 new infections were registered per day.
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