MELBOURNE (Reuters) – Tickets for the last four days of the Australian Open were available for purchase on Wednesday ahead of the expected lifting of Victoria state’s snap coronavirus lockdown.
Crowds were shut out of the Grand Slam tennis tournament at Melbourne Park from last Saturday after an outbreak in Melbourne of the COVID-19 variant associated with Britain.
The state reported no local coronavirus cases on Wednesday, putting it on track to ease the restrictions as scheduled at midnight.
Under the original crowd restrictions put in place before the tournament, 25,000 fans will be allowed into the Melbourne Park precinct over each of the last four days of the championships.
Tournament organisers will be desperate to get fans through the gates after spending a huge amount of money to get the tournament up and running, including some A$40 million ($31.01 million) on putting players through 14 days of quarantine.
Some tickets for Sunday’s men’s final were still available on Wednesday morning at A$550 each.
($1 = 1.2898 Australian dollars)
(Reporting by Nick Mulvenney, editing by Pritha Sarkar)
