Australian Open director Craig Tiley has warned that the 2021 tournament could be cancelled due to coronavirus in a worst-case scenario.
The 2020 edition of the annual event - initially played amid bushfire smoke in Melbourne - is still the most recent tennis Grand Slam to have taken place this year, with Novak Djokovic and Sofia Kenin winning the men's and women's singles titles respectively back in February.
The Covid-19 pandemic has subsequently had a major impact on the global tennis calendar, with the French Open - traditionally held at Roland Garros in May and June - moved to September and Wimbledon cancelled altogether for the first time since World War Two.
The USTA are set to make a decision on the US Open in June, while the ATP and WTA tours remain suspended until at least July 13, wiping out both the clay and grass-court seasons.
And while the 2021 Australian Open remains eight months away, Tennis Australia chief Tiley believes that the best organisers can hope for at this stage is that the event takes place with quarantine measures and no fans from overseas.
"Worst-case scenario is no AO," he told the Australian Associated Press.
"Our best-case scenario at this point is having an AO with players that we can get in here with quarantining techniques and Australian-only fans."
Expanding on contingency plans, Tiley added: “There’s four scenarios and we’ve modelled everything.
“We’ve modelled the times we have to make decisions, dates we have to make decisions, who it impacts, how it’s going to impact them.
“We’ve done that for 670 staff. We’ve done that for all of our partners - our media partners, our sponsors and for all the governments and places we rent facilities (from).
“And now we’re working on the international playing group and getting them to understand what each of those scenarios are and what it means for them and how we can action it.”
