The Australian Open has officially confirmed that all participants must be fully vaccinated to compete in next year’ tournament.
“There’s a lot of speculation about vaccination and just to be really clear, when the Premier announced that everyone on site … will need to be vaccinated … we made that clear to the playing group,” tournament boss Craig Tiley said.
This included world number on Novak Djokovic.
Tiley said that the Serbian superstar “has said that he views this as a private matter for him.
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“We would love to see Novak here, he knows that he’ll have to be vaccinated to play here.”
Prime Minister Scott Morrison had previously opened the door for un-vaccinated players to be allowed in via some sort of loophole, only for that suggestion to be immediately struck down by Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews.
“There needs to be a little bit of flexibility so we can live with the virus,” Morrison said last month.
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But it was only a couple of hours later that Andrews responded.
“On behalf of every vaccinated Victorian who has done the right thing – my goverment will not be applying for an exemption for any unvaccinated player,” he said.
“What I want to make very clear is that the state of Victoria will not be applying for any exemptions for unvaccinated players.”
With that story officially put to bed, the tournament organisers can now focus on the event itself, which starts on January 17.
Sports fans across Victoria were buoyed by the news earlier this week that both the Open and the Boxing Day Test would be allowed to operate with full capacity crowds.