Oz premier confident of Australian Open going ahead

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The political leader of Australia's Victorian state says despite "incredibly complex" negotiations, he is confident January's Australian Open tennis tournament will proceed. Daniel Andrews, the state's top lawmaker, on Monday had cast doubts over planning for the season's first tennis Grand Slam tournament which is scheduled for January 18-31 at Melbourne Park.

Tennis Australia has been hoping for several months that the Victorian and Australian governments would approve a plan for players to start arriving in mid-December and to quarantine in a special training hub with their restricted entourages.

When tennis organisers announced earlier in the week that all regional tune-up tournaments would be moved to Victoria, rather than spread around other Australian capital cities as usual, Andrews reacted by saying that the revised plans were "not a done deal." The ATP, the international men's tennis tour, later issued a memo to its players. "In discussions with Tennis Australia over the past 24 hours, we have been informed there are some new challenges around the previously planned arrival dates for players and team members," the ATP said.

"We continue to work with Tennis Australia on confirming plans for January, and we will provide an update as soon as more information is available in the coming days." Andrews on Wednesday said: "We are working very, very closely with Tennis Australia. They are working [with] all of their partners and we're confident that we'll finish up with an Australian Open."

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