Tennis Australia needs five years to recover from pandemic

FILE PHOTO: Tennis - Australian Open - Melbourne Park, Australia - 26/1/11 General View of the crowd Mandatory Credit: Action Images / Jason O'Brien/File Photo

MELBOURNE (Reuters) - Tennis Australia (TA) expects to exhaust most of its A$80 million ($59.01 million) reserves to maintain funding to the sport as it deals with significant costs in staging the Australian Open during the COVID-19 pandemic.

TA boss Craig Tiley said the governing body would likely spend more than A$40 million on quarantine and biosecurity operations for the year's first Grand Slam, which is also expected to be delayed from its Jan. 18-31 schedule.