The WTA players' council has received an e-mail from Tennis Australia outlining the provisional rules for the 2022 Australian Open.
The news was broken by tennis reporter Ben Rothenberg who summarised the provisional rules in a series of tweets on his official Twitter. The key word about the whole thing is 'provisional' as the rules are the current ones and they could be possibly changed later. The decision will come to the Victorian or Australian Government.
For now, the rules imply that vaccinated players will not have to quarantine and will have free movement around the tennis complex. Unvaccinated players will be allowed to enter the country but they will need to complete a mandatory 14-day quarantine. The most notable change is the fact that qualifying will not be held in Melbourne as opposed to the Middle East.
Last year the qualifiers were notably played in the Middle East and that won't be the case this year. These are only the provisional rules that apply for now. The information will be handed out to all WTA players in order to familiarize them with the situation. As noted by Rothenberg these rules can change if the higher legislative bodies decide to impose stricter rules.
🐨Update on #AusOpen🐨 Per email sent to WTA players just now, Tennis Australia has told WTA PC that fully vaccinated players won’t be required to quarantine or bubble at all. Unvaccinated players will be allowed to enter, TA tells WTA, but must do 14 days of hotel quarantine.
