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Thursday's matches at the six events ahead of
the Feb. 8-21 Grand Slam were cancelled after a worker at the
Grand Hyatt Hotel, which was used to quarantine players and
their entourages, tested positive for the virus.
That left organisers Tennis Australia (TA) with just three days
to complete the matches before the year's first major starts at
the same venue from Monday.
"All WTA singles matches from Friday on will be a best of two
regular tie break sets with a 10 point match tie break if
required for a final set," TA said in the fixtures released for
Friday's order of play.
The men's tournaments will continue to be held in its existing
best-of-three sets formats, with a tiebreak at 6-6 in the final
set.
Over 500 people, including 160 players, connected to the
Australian Open were considered "casual contacts" of the hotel
worker and asked to undergo coronavirus tests, Victoria Premier
Daniel Andrews said at a press conference late on Wednesday.
They are in isolation until they receive their test results.
Australian Open chief Craig Tiley told reporters on Thursday
that the Grand Slam will begin as scheduled on Monday.
(Reporting by Sudipto Ganguly in Mumbai; editing by Ana Nicolaci
da Costa)
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