As sports continues to struggle with the damage done to it by coronavirus, the Aussie Open has announced only about 30,000 fans will grace the match venues, Victoria state sports minister Martin Pakula said on Saturday.
This is a far cry from massive attendance and represents only 50% as the event moves closer to serve off February 8.
The limit will be reduced to 25,000 over the last five days of the tournament when there are fewer matches, but Pakula said the announcement would ensure some of the biggest crowds for a sporting event since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
‘It’ll mean that over the 14 days, we will have up to 390,000 people here at Melbourne Park and that’s about 50 per cent of the average over the last three years,’ he told reporters at the venue for the tournament.
‘It will not be the same as the last few years but it will be the most significant international event with crowds that the world has seen in many, many months.’
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Pakula said the decision was a testament to the job the people of Victoria had done in containing the new coronavirus after enduring one of the longest and strictest lockdowns in the world.
It has been 24 days since Victoria reported a locally acquired COVID-19 infection, while Australia as a whole posted a 13th straight day without a community case on Saturday.
More than 1,000 people, players and their entourages, were obliged to undergo 14 days of quarantine on their arrival in Australia ahead of the year’s first Grand Slam.