SINGAPORE, Feb 20 — The Singapore Tennis Open, an indoor hard-court tournament taking place here from February 22 to 28 at the Singapore Sports Hub, will not be allowing spectators at the international event for safety reasons, its organisers said yesterday.

However, if there are no reported cases of Covid-19 at the tournament and Singapore's Covid-19 situation remains under control until the middle of next week, the organisers may permit public spectators of up to 250 for each arena during the finals week.

The tournament’s organising chairman Lim Teck Yin said yesterday at a virtual media conference: "Right now, this is classified as a closed-door event, but notwithstanding, we would like to open the door for a review midway in the tournament to see if conditions allow us to bring spectators to come and attend the event on its finals weekend.”

Since the start of the pandemic, the first live international sport event to be held in Singapore was the One Championship mixed-martial arts competition last October. Other competitions such as the Singapore Premier League have also allowed public spectators.

Asked why spectators were not permitted from the start for the Singapore Tennis Open, Lim said that the tournament was originally intended to allow spectators, until the spate of Covid-19 outbreaks around the world led Singapore’s authorities to tighten safe-distancing regulation during Chinese New Year.

However, having a mid-week review signifies an "agility and adaptation to the prevailing” coronavirus situation, he said.The decision to allow spectators will depend on whether the competition — as well as Singapore’s pandemic situation — is free of Covid-19, he added.

Lim, who is also chief executive officer of national sports body Sports Singapore, said that no effort has been spared in keeping the event safe. 

Foreign and Singapore players will be kept in their own "micro-bubbles”, which means that they will be permitted to travel only among three places: The airport, hotel and the competition venue.

Unnecessary interactions between different entourages of players will also be minimised. This means that players and their teams have to use separate dining rooms from other groups at their hotels, as well as different gyms and training areas.

Contact between event organisers, overseas officials, and the entourages will also be highly limited.All players will undergo daily Covid-19 polymerase chain reaction tests throughout their stay in Singapore, while staff members, officials and volunteers here will have to undergo daily antigen rapid tests.

Around 50 players have arrived in Singapore in time for the qualifiers taking place on February 20 and 21 — many recently came from the Australia Open in Melbourne.

They will be isolated upon arrival until they receive a negative test result and they will need to download the TraceTogether contact-tracing mobile application during their stay here.

So far, there has been zero Covid-19 positive result from these players’ tests, Lim said.

If someone tests positive for Covid-19 during the tournament, Lim said that there are several contingency protocols in place, with scenarios planned for an infection no matter where the player may be, even during a match.

Fans may tune in to the live coverage of the Singapore Tennis Open on Mediacorp’s streaming site meWatch.Mediacorp, the event’s official broadcaster, will have a live broadcast of the finals on February 28 on Channel 5. ― TODAY