Australian Open CEO assures players all is OK for Melbourne

Associated PressJan 6, 2021, 4:28 PM EST

Getty Images

MELBOURNE, Australia — Australian Open chief executive Craig Tiley is reassuring players that the delayed season-opening Grand Slam tournament will get underway on Feb. 8 and has asked for patience with the logistics and quarantine planning amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The world’s leading tennis players are set to start arriving in Melbourne from Jan. 15 and must undergo 14 days in hotel quarantine, although they’ll be allowed to practice for limited periods daily in a bio-secure bubble.

Reports from Europe about players being unclear on charter flight details prompted a series of Twitter posts from Tiley to provide an update. Australian Open organizers are chartering up to 20 flights from Dubai, Singapore and Los Angeles to bring players to Melbourne.

“There have been some unavoidable delays finalizing flight details for players and I’d like to take this opportunity to provide an update,” Tiley posted on Twitter. “There are a lot of pieces to this logistical puzzle and the last few are being finalized right now.

“We appreciate your patience and are conscious that time timelines are very tight.”

The professional circuit resumes this week, with main-draw action Wednesday at the Abu Dhabi WTA Women’s Tennis Open, where Sofia Kenin leads the field, and Thursday at the ATP’s Delray Beach Open.

Women’s singles qualifying or the Australian Open will be staged in Dubai and men’s singles qualifying in Doha, Qatar from Jan. 10-13.

Top-ranked Novak Djokovic and No. 2 Rafael Nadal will be involved in a 12-team ATP Cup to be staged at Melbourne Park, along with a WTA tournament and an ATP 250 event, from Feb. 1-5 to give players some exposure to match play in Australia before the season’s first major.

Despite a small recent outbreak of coronavirus in some parts of Sydney and Melbourne, organizers are still planning to have limited crowds at the Australian Open.

Tennis Australia is hoping to have up to 35% capacity at Melbourne Park, all with ticketed seating and divided into three zones to minimize movement around the sprawling complex. There’s still a chance there’ll be no crowds if the number of coronavirus cases in Melbourne spikes and triggers tighter health and travel restrictions.

“Clearly, if there is significant community spread at the time, the government will make decisions on reducing those crowd numbers, or not,” Tiley told Melbourne radio station 3AW on Wednesday. “Those are the things we’ve got to be ready to change at any point.

“We are not going to put an event on that is going to be unsafe for the community.”

The players will be tested before traveling to Australia and every day during quarantine.

“When they come of their 14 days there’s no way they are going to be in a position where they are going to be spreading the virus,” Tiley said.

US Open ‘very hopeful’ unvaccinated Novak Djokovic can play

Associated PressMar 20, 2023, 1:01 AM EDT

Waleed Zein/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

After Novak Djokovic withdrew from tournaments in Florida and California because he still can’t travel to the United States as a foreign citizen who is not vaccinated against COVID-19, a U.S. Tennis Association spokesman said Saturday the group is “very hopeful” the top-ranked player will be allowed into the country for the U.S. Open in August.

“Policies concerning access to the United States are determined by the White House. We are very hopeful that the policy preventing Novak Djokovic from entering the United States will be rescinded, or lapse, in the near future,” the USTA’s Chris Widmaier wrote to The Associated Press. “No COVID-19 restrictions are in place at the U.S. Open for any player, fan or other attendee. Novak, one of our sport’s great champions, would be welcome to compete at the 2023 U.S. Open.”

The two-week U.S. Open starts in Flushing Meadows on Aug. 28.

Djokovic, a 35-year-old from Serbia, was unable to get to New York for the season’s last Grand Slam tournament in 2022, when he also missed the Miami Open and BNP Paribas Open because he never got the shots for the illness caused by the coronavirus.

A six-time Miami Open champion, Djokovic is out of the field for the event that begins next week, a spokesman for the Miami Open said Saturday.

Djokovic is No. 1 in the ATP rankings and is tied with Rafael Nadal – who is injured and also won’t be in Miami – at 22 Grand Slam titles, the record for most won by a man. In 2023, Djokovic is 15-1 with two titles, including at the Australian Open in January.

But he will now have missed the first two Masters 1000 events of the season. He also pulled out of the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, California, which ends this weekend.

Back in in April 2020, as the pandemic raged, Djokovic said he was opposed to needing to be vaccinated to travel. He later said he would not get inoculated even if it meant missing tournaments.

In January 2022, he tried to get an exemption to compete at the Australian Open and traveled to Melbourne. But after his case went to court, his visa was revoked and Djokovic was deported from the country.

Pandemic restrictions have been eased in Australia since, and Djokovic returned this year without a problem and won the season’s first major championship.

Meanwhile, Nadal has been sidelined since hurting his left hip flexor during a second-round loss at Melbourne Park. He is aiming to return to action at the Monte Carlo Masters next month.

Alcaraz wins Indian Wells over Medvedev, regains No. 1 rank

Associated PressMar 20, 2023, 1:00 AM EDT

Julian Finney/Getty Images

INDIAN WELLS, Calif. – Carlos Alcaraz defeated Daniil Medvedev 6-3, 6-2 on Sunday to win the BNP Paribas Open title and regain the world’s No. 1 ranking.

The 19-year-old Spaniard will move from second to first in the ATP Tour rankings on Monday, displacing Novak Djokovic. The Serb withdrew from Indian Wells before the tournament began when he couldn’t gain entry to the U.S. because he’s unvaccinated for COVID-19.

“For me, it’s a dream come true again,” Alcaraz said. “Obviously being in front of such great players like Novak, it’s an amazing feeling.”

“I would say this has been the perfect tournament,” he said.

In the women’s final, Elena Rybakina beat Aryna Sabalenka 7-6 (11), 6-4 and handed the world’s second-ranked player just her second loss this year.

Last year, Alcaraz became the youngest man to reach No. 1 in ATP history after his title at the U.S. Open.

He achieved another mark in the third round at Indian Wells. That’s when Alcaraz notched his 100th career match victory, the second-quickest player behind John McEnroe to do so.

Alcaraz also became the first man to win the tournament without dropping a set since Roger Federer in 2017 and the youngest man to win the title in the desert.

“I really trust in every shot that I hit,” he said. “If I miss, I don’t mind.”

Alcaraz hit 19 winners and had 10 unforced errors while keeping Medvedev off-balance with a steady array of serve-and-volley and drop shots. The teenager never faced a break point while opening leads of 3-0 in the first set and 4-0 in the second.

“What I improve a lot is to don’t take the pressure, just to play relaxed,” Alcaraz said. “That’s why I show a great level, because I feel like I have no pressure. I enjoy. I’m playing relaxed.”

Medvedev’s 19-match winning streak ended. It went back to his title run in Rotterdam in February. He then won tournaments in Doha and Dubai.

“I want to congratulate you for the work you have done in the last few months,” Alcaraz told his opponent. “Winning three titles in a row and reaching the finals here is an amazing achievement.”

Alcaraz and Rybakina earned $1,262,220 each for their wins.

Rybakina carried the momentum from her straight-set semifinal upset of top-ranked Iga Swiatek into the final and beat Sabalenka for the first time in five career meetings.

For the first time in their budding rivalry, the match didn’t go three sets. Sabalenka went the distance to beat Rybakina in the Australian Open final in January. In that match, Sabalenka fired 17 aces and rallied from a set down to win her first Grand Slam title.

This time, the 10th-seeded Rybakina had seven aces and No. 2 seed Sabalenka committed 10 double faults. Sabalenka won just 11 of 35 second-serve points.

“I would say that I was super disappointed with my serve, so I was back to old habits,” she said. “I was like a little bit overreacting on things, and I wasn’t there in the first two games in the second set.”

Rybakina broke for leads of 2-0 and 5-2 in the second set before Sabalenka closed to 5-4. But Rybakina served out the victory in just over two hours.

“This tiebreak was really epic, I would say, with all these double faults and nerves,” Rybakina said. “In the end, it was just focusing on every point and try to fight till the end.”

Rybakina improved her match record to 16-4 this year; Sabalenka fell to 17-2.

“This tough loss will motivate me more because I don’t like to lose in the finals,” Sabalenka said. “This is the worst.”

During the victory ceremony, Rybakina, the current Wimbledon champion, told the crowd it was the first time she’d beaten Sabalenka.

Sabalenka stepped forward, took the mic and said, “I will make sure it was the last one.”

Then she smiled.