Players who completed the ‘normal’ quarantine period were allowed to spend five hours outside each day – an hour and a half at the practice court and the gym respectively, an hour to eat, and an hour to travel to-and-from, with some top players completing theirs in Adelaide rather than Melbourne.
Tournament officials came under fire for their handling of strict quarantine periods for those on charter flights returning positive cases, and Craig Tiley admitted earlier this year that players would no longer accept the strict quarantine rules, leading for plans to create a bubble between official tournament hotels and the tournament site.
While quarantine plans are set to be more relaxed for the 2022 tournament, players were able to spend Christmas at home last year after the Australian Open was pushed back from its usual January slot to February.
With the tournament back in its usual familiar place in the calendar for mid to late January in 2022, there is now the added element of qualifying players and main-draw entrants likely being forced to miss Christmas to compete in the preliminary event and catch their charter flight to Australia to complete their quarantine before play begins.
