Covid-19 positives on Australian Open flights put 47 players in isolation | australian open

When the 15 chartered planes carrying more than 1,000 tennis players and team members began landing in Australia last week, many athletes punctuated their arrivals with a series of statements expressing deep gratitude to Tennis Australia, the Victorian government and the Australian Open Tournament Director Craig Tiley for his efforts to make the event possible.

That heartwarming honeymoon didn’t last long. There were no positive messages on Saturday morning as two groups of Australian Open players were confined to their rooms for 14 days. The Australian Open begins on February 8, which means that players on the affected flights will be restricted to just over a week of practice.

The ruling came after two people, a coach and a flight attendant, on the charter flight from Los Angeles and one person on a flight from Abu Dhabi tested positive for Covid-19.

In total, 47 tennis players and 143 travelers have been confined to their rooms, including Victoria Azarenka, Sloane Stephens, Angelique Kerber, Kei Nishikori and Britain’s Heather Watson. There was more whispering after Serbian player Filip Krajinovic’s physical trainer, who is Novak Djokovic’s training partner in Australia, tested positive for Covid-19 after his flight to Adelaide. According to Serbian journalist Saša Ozmo, he was acquitted after antibodies were found.

Players understandably expressed dismay. Part of the reason the Australian Open negotiations were so complex was the difficult situation of players being able to maintain their physical condition before a slam. The compromise that was decided was a “modified quarantine” in which players could practice for five hours a day under strict conditions.

Nearly 50 players are now in a position where they could risk injury while competing if their preparation isn’t enough. “They told us that the plane would be separated by a section of 10 people and that if a person in his section was positive, then he had to isolate himself. Not that the entire plane had to do it, ”French player Alize Cornet wrote on Twitter.

Ultimately, much of what had happened was already known. Transporting so many people from countries where the virus continues to rage would always yield positive results. A negative result within 72 hours of a flight does not mean that someone will not test positive two days later. Exposure to coronavirus on airplanes or elsewhere does not perfectly fit the zones, particularly when one of the positive cases was a flight attendant.

There has been minimal sympathy for players in some quarters, which has not been helped by the perception that some athletes are entitled, particularly due to the frequency with which some use social media to vent and complain during their travels. On Saturday, some players responded to the criticism with defiance.

“I have no problem staying in the room for 14 days watching Netflix,” Romanian Sorana Cirstea said on Twitter. “Trust me, this is a dream come true, even a vacation. What we can’t do is COMPETE after having been on a couch for 14 days. This is the problem, not the quarantine rule. “

But there are inherent risks not just in bringing so many people from all over the world to a tournament, but in doing it at the same time. A small outbreak could have a dramatic effect on the community, threatening to undo the collective work of Australians. The tremendous efforts and sacrifices of the people of Victoria, who endured more than three and a half months of confinement to drag their new community infections to zero, must be sustained at all costs. There should be no Australian Open if the organizers waver on that priority.

The questions are already piling up. The Australian Open had just navigated the first negative headlines after American Tennys Sandgren, who was on the tainted Los Angeles flight, decided it was a good idea to tweet live in the frenzied minutes after her positive test. Finally, he was allowed to travel after his positive test was deemed to have been caused by a residual virus from when he became infected in November. However, the damage was done. The news that a tennis player tested positive for Covid-19 with minimal context was always going to be alarming.

Meanwhile, the mere presence of the world’s best tennis players in Australia remains a deeply contentious issue. While some Australians are still stranded abroad and others are divided by national border closures, more than a thousand international athletes have quietly entered the country. It is jarring. The Australian Open will go ahead and considerable work has been done to make such a large-scale event work, but these events offer reason to wonder if this is all worth it.

For lower ranked players, there is a source of sympathy here. This tournament has served to further underline the preferential treatment accorded to stars, even when all players are theoretically in the same position. A dozen of the top players were sent to Adelaide, allowing them to travel with their biggest teams and in greater luxury.

While Naomi Osaka posed with the four members of her team, Djokovic had a pleasant conversation with a Serbian fan from his balcony and Daniil Medvedev took a look at his hotel suite, others prepared for two weeks stuck in their still pleasant hotel rooms. no fresh air and just an exercise bike to keep them company.

“Do you know players from another hotel?” said world number 99 from Ukraine Marta Kostyuk on Instagram. “Their windows open.”