The Australian authorities defended this Sunday the measures against covid-19 implemented to tennis players and members of their team upon arrival in the country to participate in the Australian Open, including the 14-day quarantine. “This procedure is to keep people safe,” said Emma Cassar Commissioner for Quarantines of the Covid-19 in the state of Victoria, in whose capital Melbourne the tournament is held, warning of “zero tolerance” and harsh sanctions against anyone who tries to circumvent it.
At least four people have tested positive in some of the flights from abroad and in which some of the athletes traveled, who are now forced to spend the two weeks of quarantine without leaving their room and without the possibility of training. As a result of these positives – none of them a player -, 47 tennis players, considered as close contact with the infected, must overcome a strict confinement, which has raised strong complaints among tennis players. “If they are on the plane for 16 or 24 hours with the air circulating inside the aircraft, you are considered a close contact, we will not propose a change in this”, the commissioner rejected.
However, those athletes who have not shared a flight with a positive case, they are allowed to leave their room for 5 hours a day to train, according to the tournament rules. Between Thursday and Saturday, more than 1,000 tennis players and staff from their technical team have arrived in Australia, Cassar said.
Craig Tiley, director of the Australian Open, stated on local television channel 9 that the tournament “will be played without delay” and kept the start date of February 8, while admitting that they knew that “there would be such risks” during the organization of the competition. Melbourne, which experienced a second confinement between July and November, was the epicenter of the most virulent wave of COVID-19 in the oceanic country and whose spread was attributed to security failures in quarantine hotels for people from abroad.
Possible boycott
As the ocean Grand Slam stance holds firm, rumors about a possible boycott of players during the start of the tournament (they would jump onto the track and then retire) they do not stop growing. Discontent is generalized by the management of the positives of the last hours and the reaction of the Novak Djokovic it has not been made wait.
The Serbian, an exercise leader both on and off the court, has moved a tab so that the 47 players who remain isolated have the same preparation conditions prior to the tournament as the most privileged tennis players in the ranking. That is why, according to the portal Break point, Djokovic would have sent a letter to Craig Tiley with a series of measures that would provide the necessary equality demanded by the players. Among them, stands out the request that isolated players be transferred to private houses with training courts, that they can visit their coach and physical trainer and that the days of isolation be reduced with the performance of more tests that confirm the negatives in COVID -19.