MELBOURNE, Australia — It was late December, and Craig Tiley was feeling good. After months of negotiations with government officials and the world’s top tennis players, Tiley, the head of Tennis Australia, finally had the green light to stage the Australian Open in the middle of the pandemic.
Health officials and government leaders had come around to the idea of more than a thousand people arriving from overseas, including hundreds of players who would enjoy privileges during their 14-day quarantine period that Australian citizens could not. And the players had agreed to spend virtually their entire day in their hotel rooms for two weeks and to limit their on-court practice time to just two hours each day.