Australian Open chief Craig Tiley confident Nadal will play in Melbourne

Australian Open chief Craig Tiley remains confident that Rafael Nadal will play in Melbourne despite testing positive for Covid-19.

Rafael Nadal made his return to tennis at the Mubadala World Tennis Championship in Abu Dhabi where he played two solid matches albeit losing both. Upon return to Spain, the Spaniard tested positive for COVID-19 which he publicly announced the same day. Nadal did not comment on the Australian Open specifically but the positive test is a problem for him if he intended to play.

He will need to test negative in the next few days in order to be able to enter the country. Even before that Nadal was unsure about playing at the event when asked about it in Abu Dhabi. He deflected the question explaining that he will talk with his team and make a decision. Australian Open Chief Craig Tiley was asked about Nadal and he said:

I’m confident Rafa will be here. Players that are testing positive now will complete a period of time until they are no longer infectious and they’ll be fine.”

Tiley was also asked about Novak Djokovic and on that he said:

“If Novak shows up at the Australian Open, he’ll either be vaccinated or he’ll have a medical exemption. Medically, he doesn’t talk to anyone about it — I’m not going to ask Novak that, it’s none of my business.”