Just minutes from the heart of Victoria’s capital, Melbourne Park is one of the great tennis complexes. For a fortnight in January, it will be the centre of the tennis world as the home of the year’s first Grand Slam tournament, the Australian Open.
For Melburnians the Open is more than just a tennis tournament. The grounds throb with life and with the relaxed summer holiday vibe that comes between Christmas and Australia Day on 26 January; night matches pause as celebratory fireworks light the skies over the city.
This year will be no different, except for one thing. To enter Melbourne Park, patrons, staff, media and almost all players will have to be double-vaccinated against Covid-19. Furthermore, they must show physical proof of their vaccination status, which for Australians is a government-issued certificate downloaded on to their mobile phones.
The message from the organisers, and from the state government of Victoria, is blunt: no certificate, no entry.
Djokovic’s entry would have made a complete mockery of every sacrifice demanded of Australians in this pandemic
These regulations come after Victoria, and especially Melbourne, has endured one of the harshest Covid regimes in the world under the state’s premier Daniel Andrews.
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