Melbourne may host the entire Australian swing in January.

Coronavirus restrictions could compel Tennis Australia officials to stage the Australian season—including the ATP Cup which is scheduled to start on January 1st in Brisbane, Perth and Sydney—in Melbourne.

Navratilova to Djokovic: You're Trying to Divide Us

Current government COVID-19 protocol require players to quarantine for 14 days upon arrival in Australia.

Concerned about possible quarantine travel restrictions within states as the pandemic surges, officials are considering holding all Australian Open tune-up tournaments in Melbourne.

“To have those multi-city events, we would need two things. We would need a quarantine plan that gets approved by each state,” Tennis Australia chief Craig Tiley told The Age. “The second one is we would need a commitment from governments that there can be free travel from state to state.

“You never know, we may be in the unfortunate position that there’s a sudden infection spike of 100 people in January. And the other cities will shut down travel and we’ll have players stuck there."



Tiley said players are expected to start arriving Down Under in mid-December and the TA is in talks with local governments to permit international players to play in tournaments while underdoing quarantine. However that proposal has not been approved as of yet and may not be approved.

"Players will come in the middle of December and it will be two weeks [of quarantine] before the summer, and then they’ll have four-five weeks of being able to play tennis at Melbourne if it’s all the events," Tiley told The Age. "If not it will be events in other cities and then the Australian Open...

"At this point our governments have not approved that [quarantine plan] Anything is a possibility, but we’re not banking on that.”