Hotel switch for tennis quarantine
MELBOURNE • The Australian Open organisers have been forced to tear up a quarantine accommodation plan for international players a month before the first Grand Slam of the year starts, after apartment owners at a luxury hotel in Melbourne threatened legal action.
Tennis Australia and government authorities had arranged for players to serve a 14-day mandatory quarantine at the Westin Melbourne ahead of the Feb 8-21 hard-court Major.
But the plan was yesterday scrapped after apartment owners at the hybrid condo-hotel complained a day earlier they had not been properly consulted and would seek an injunction against it.
“Following consultation between the owners of The Westin Melbourne, the hotel’s existing residents and Covid-19 Quarantine Victoria, the decision has been made to accommodate players and their support teams arriving in Melbourne for the upcoming ATP (events) at an alternate hotel location,” the Westin said in a statement.
Graeme Efron, a lawyer representing the owners, told Reuters the quarantine plan was “never going to get through”.
“It was the epitome of hubris that they thought people would go along with it without being consulted,” he said.
International players at the Australian Open are expected to arrive in Melbourne from the middle of this month and Victoria Police Minister Lisa Neville told reporters yesterday that an alternative quarantine hotel had been secured for the players, which would be “stood up today or tomorrow”.
Many of the world’s top players are planning to compete at tournaments at Melbourne Park in the week before the Slam.
Melbourne was the epicentre of Australia’s largest second-wave outbreak of Covid-19, which started at two quarantine hotels for international arrivals.
More than 18,000 infections were recorded in the state during the outbreak, leading to nearly 800 deaths. Victoria recorded four new cases in Melbourne yesterday, including one in hotel quarantine. Australia has reported just over 28,500 coronavirus cases and 909 deaths in total.
REUTERS