Toss the playbook out the window.
The trusted and time-tested warm-ups, the routines, the rituals employed in the lead-up to the year’s first major? Yeah, you can scrap those, too. This is an Australian Open like no other, after all, one held amidst a global pandemic; one that’s seen athletes quarantined and the run-of-the-mill practice session become a treasured commodity.
Hotel rooms became improvised gymnasiums, fitted with stationary bikes, yoga matts and hand weights. Mattresses became backboards, entryways suddenly ideal for suicide sprints. But sometimes you’ve just got to make do.
“Players are so used to routines. They like to be in control. They’re not in control,” observed Chris Evert, a two-time Australian Open champion. “I think it’s going to demand a lot of patience and a lot of flexibility and who’s going to really adjust and adapt the best under those precarious circumstances.”