But after a lost year in which the world feels very upside down thanks to the virus that shall not be named, in 2021, February now marks the first step back to normalcy (you bloody beauty).On Monday, the Australian Open will return for another year, albeit a little late and a lot different.This time last year, we were a nation collectively grappling with and grieving from the devastating bushfires that had engulfed much of the country weeks earlier.
Things couldn’t be further from where we all expected them to be back then. We’ve seen cities around the world go in and out of lockdowns and lived through a few ourselves. We watched on as some exceptionally brilliant scientists created multiple viable vaccines less than a year on from COVID-19 emerging. We got to know our neighbours a little better, and our local bottle shops intimately. Hoarding toilet paper was a thing for a while there, only to be later replaced by hoarding lobster, and we all got super invested in watching daily press briefings that sometimes eventuated in lying on the floor and screaming into a pillow afterwards. But perhaps that last one was just me.One thing that never changed, though, was our love of sports.This time last year, annual cultural and sporting events like the Open helped as much in raising funds for bushfire victims as it did in raising spirits. The same is true this time around.Yes, it’ll be a little different (the tennis precinct will be zoned, stadium seats will be spaced apart to meet physical distancing requirements, and there’ll be enough hand sanitiser to clean even John McEnroe’s mouth), but the return of the Australian Open is still a much-needed taste of the old world we once knew and loved.
Restaurants, bars and cafes were some of the hardest hit by Melbourne’s lockdown, and now six months on they’ll be the greatest beneficiaries of the Open going ahead, both for those who operating within the precinct and those within its surrounding suburbs.It generates work for those in desperate need of some more hours on the clock, gives volunteers the opportunity to engage with the community again while still feeling safe, and gives all those poor kids who got the shortest end of the COVID-19 stick the chance to leave the house! To run outside and do kid things! To chase balls on court while wearing the ugliest hat ever designed while watching their heroes!Of course there’s risk involved with going ahead with the Australian Open, but one year on from the pandemic, we know what the risks are, what is required to mitigate them, and why washing your hands for two cycles of Happy Birthday is a non-negotiable fact of life.The champions who have travelled to Australia to compete may have put in far more physical hard yards, but Australians have put in some unprecedented effort to beat COVID and keep numbers low. Celebrating that with the sport on the TV might just be the perfect way to start the year, even if it does mark the end of summer.
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