From his hotel room in Adelaide, where he passes a special quarantine that was crossed out as “favorable” by some of his circuit mates, Rafa Nadal attended ESPN Argentina and sent a new message to Novak Djokovic, which is also in the bubble of the best of the ranking, with Dominic Thiem, Simona Halep, Naomi Osaka and the sisters Venus and Serena Williams. The Spaniard came up against criticism and implied that he has tried to help tennis players who are in worse conditions, although he has not done so publicly: “Here each one tries to get the maximum possible performance within our possibilities and help each other, what happens is that some need to make it public and others do it in a more private way without having to publish everything we are doing. “Rafa emphatically delves into the idea:” We do not have that need to propagandize the calls we make so that things go as well as possible for the most disadvantaged.
These manifestations they seem like a clear reference to the action Djokovic took in sending a letter to Tennis Australia director Craig Tiley, with a series of lawsuits to try to equalize the conditions of the players who are confined for having been in contact with a positive for COVID. These claims fell on deaf ears and many Australian citizens saw them as a lack of respect for the strict sanitary measures that have allowed the oceanic country to reduce the death rate from coronavirus to practically zero. Djokovic tried to clarify his position with a long statement that he published on his social networks.
Nadal, for his part, has his opinion on the apparent inequality that exists between the tennis players who wait to participate in the Australian summer tour, which will culminate in the first Grand Slam of the year (February 8-21). “Where is the line between privileges and non-privileges? There it is something different. I have a slightly different vision from other players. Here in Adelaide our conditions have been better than those of most of those in Melbourne, but there are those who have larger rooms where they can develop physical activities, others, smaller and without contact with their trainers and physical trainers “, Nadal explains
Hypocrisy
The Spanish champion continued with his assertion and shot at what he understands as hypocrisy on the part of some: “It is a matter of ethics and everyone has their own opinion, all respectable. Now to talk about fair play or a level playing field, people do not tend to complain about the position of those who are worse off than they are. There is talk that those of us in Adelaide are in better condition, but I have not heard anyone from Melbourne say that they have a better room than others, those who have been confined for 14 days without being able to train because they were on a flight with a positive. “For the number two in the world, each one goes his own way: “Those who have perhaps complained so much about our conditions in Adelaide have not decided to remain confined without training. Complaints are always from a disadvantageous position, upwards. Downwards, nobody is usually positioned at a disadvantage. ”