Australian Open stars put Craig Tilley through ’15 straight days’ of hell

Tennis Australia boss Craig Tilley did a miracle to guide the Australian Open to the finish line, but there would be no revelation in the victory.

If it is a success, then the failure will be unimaginable.

For the first time, the veteran tournament director spoke openly about his month’s “outrage” from behind the scenes, finally letting his emotions show when he could see the finish line in front Novak Djokovic’s win over Daniel Medvedev in men’s final on Sunday night.

Teal, who is organizing a global sports event in the midst of an epidemic, acknowledged that it had taken a toll – especially in the last six weeks.

Despite lack of sleep, weight loss and incredible stress – somehow he derailed the tournament.

Tiley told the AAP how brutal their 2021 has become after tennis players and officials from around the world arrived – 72 players and their staff were forced into a tight lockout at the hotel quarantine for 14 days.

Teal was able to bring a laugh before the start of the Open where he revealed “bizarre” requests from players in the lockdown allowing kittens and puppies to the players’ rooms to complete their quarantine period.

But she was not laughable when she gave an interview on Sunday.

Tiley said he received “significant” abuse when he constantly talked to the players in lockdown through a zoom meeting.

Craig Tiele congratulated Novak Djokovic on February 21, 2021
Craig Tiele congratulated Novak Djokovic on February 21, 2021
Getty Images

He said, “I got abuses on the phone. This was important. “There were a lot of complaints about a lot of things, and some of them were okay. We were just trying to do our best.

He said, “I decided that I am going to face it and I am going to take the heat not from anyone but my team. But usually when you take heat, you take it once. It was 15 straight days. It is like being verbally attacked for 15 straight days. “

He said regular abuse left “heavy dark clouds” at his Melbourne home.

His odds included the nightmare of a hotel worker testing positive for COVID-19 – forcing about 500 players and officials to separate and test. Along with playing in all five ATP and WTA warm-up tournaments, the ATP Cup event featuring the world’s top players in Melbourne was canceled as a precaution – just three days before the start of the Open.

The incident was also pushed to the breaking point when an emergency meeting of the Victorian cabinet announced the withdrawal of Stage 4 restrictions – a five-day lockdown that shut down all tennis fans in the middle of the program. It created a distant view of fans in the midst of Novak Djokovic’s five-set thriller against American Taylor Fritz after the clock ticked at 11:30.

The total attendance was just 130,374 spectators with the crowd hesitating to participate in the midst of an epidemic – up from 812,174 last year.

Tiley has now admitted that the event wiped out Tennis Australia’s $ 63 million in cash reserves and would force the event to take a concessional loan.

This is the game that seems to be in the midst of an epidemic. Despite massive hits, Tiley is declaring the event a success after showing Melbourne to the world.

Behind the scenes, there have been many times when anything felt but success.

Tensions and outrageous criticism from the players prompted Tilly to make tough calls to move his family – wife Ali, twin sons, 7, and daughter, 8, from the family home in Melbourne to a home in Mornington Peninsula, southeast Departed. Melbourne

“Because the stress was too much at home,” he said. “It was very difficult because I don’t think I was in a place to be effective when I was at home.

“So they left. I was at my house for maybe seven, eight days. And I should be – I was getting hammered. If you are getting hammered that way, then it is probably better that you do not have people around you because I would have trusted someone else.

“They felt there was a heavy black cloud at home, so they left and when everyone got out of quarantine and they started playing, they came back, and the kids went back to school.”

He explained that in the last six weeks his routine has been departing from Tennis Australia’s headquarters in Melbourne Park at around 2pm, sneaking into a 3-4 hour sleep, before doing it all.

He said that he also has some period of waking up to 50 hours in a row.

“I think I calculated that it was like a 50-hour window of staying awake. It’s like torture,” he said.

“Sleeplessness is a form of torture.

“But it was my choice. I could cut things. “

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