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(CNN) – Instead of training for up to five hours a day while preparing for the Australian Open, 72 players are unable to leave their hotel rooms under quarantine rules, and several of them verbally express their frustrations.
Some are not just frustrated. Victoria’s Covid-19 Quarantine Commissioner Emma Cassar said Sunday that there had been “a few” people, including a player inside the Australian Open quarantine hotels who were “testing our procedures.”
A fourth Covid-19 infection has been recorded among passengers on the two charter flights taking players to Melbourne for the Australian Open in recent days, according to Cassar.
A member of a broadcast team on the flight carrying 24 Los Angeles players had tested positive, in addition to a crew member and a coach on the same plane who tested positive earlier. The other case was a coach on a charter flight carrying 23 players from Abu Dhabi.
Later on Sunday, Australian Open organizers announced that another 25 players had been placed in quarantine hotels after a passenger on a Doha-Melbourne flight that arrived on Saturday tested positive for Covid-19.
“The passenger is not a member of the player contingent and tested negative before the flight,” the Australian Open said in a statement. “There were 58 passengers on the flight, including 25 players.”
The 72 affected players are required to be quarantined for two weeks and will not be able to leave their hotel rooms for the 14 day period and until they are medically cleared. They are not eligible to practice.
“A player who opened his door to try to have a conversation with his sparring partner in the hallway,” added Cassar. “The other was another guy who yelled something from Uber Eats to other people on the floor and praised himself for his great efforts and opened the door to do so.
“These are very low-level but very dangerous acts that we simply cannot tolerate,” Cassar said. One of the two people mentioned was a gamer, and they have been warned, according to the Victoria Covid-19 Quarantine Commissioner.
World No. 71 Sorana Cirstea said she understood the need to self-quarantine, but that not being able to train and practice would affect her ability to compete effectively at the Australian Open.
“People complain that we have a right,” Cirstea tweeted. “I have no problem staying 14 days in the room watching Netflix. Believe me, this is a dream come true, even a vacation.
“What we can’t do is COMPETE after 14 days on a couch. This is the problem, not the quarantine rule.”
“It would take at least 3 weeks later to get back in good shape and compete at a high level!” Cirstea said in another tweet.
READ: Tennys Sandgren tests positive for Covid-19 and then boards the plane to the Australian Open
‘Wrong surface’
Belinda Bencic echoed Cirstea’s observation that the competitive balance at the Australian Open, which is the first grand slam of the tennis season, could be affected with quarantined players at a significant disadvantage.
“We are not complaining about being in quarantine,” tweeted Belinda Bencic. “We complain about the uneven practice / playing conditions before quite big tournaments.
In another tweet, the world’s number 12 said: “Wrong surface, but we don’t care about that.” The tweet was accompanied by a video of Bencic, racket in hand, gently tapping a tennis ball against the window of his hotel room.
However, a prominent former tennis star gave little thought to players complaining about the quarantine.
“I have opinions about these tennis players who are complaining about the quarantine situation here at OZ and to @AustralianOpen and they are NOT going to want to hear it from me.
“It has something to do with a minimum of $ 100,000, free flights, food and much more, do you want to talk to my children?” tweeted Rennae Stubbs, who won six Grand Slam doubles titles. Now retired, Australian Stubbs works as a television expert and hosts the Racquet magazine podcast.
Meanwhile, Australian Open Tournament Director Craig Tiley confirmed on Sunday that the tournament will continue next month.
“We will continue to do our best to make sure that those players have what is not a great situation, one that is something acceptable,” Tiley told Australia’s Nine Network.
“We are reviewing the previous schedule to see what we can do to help these players.”
According to the Victorian State Government website on Sunday there are 30 active cases in the region, with seven acquired internationally and quarantined in the last 24 hours, none acquired locally in that time period.
Before the 72 players went into quarantine, tournament organizers had said the players would also “undergo a more rigorous testing program than most returning travelers.”
All must undergo a 14-day quarantine, but are allowed out for five hours a day to train in strict biosecurity bubbles before a series of warm-up tournaments, all in Melbourne, in the week leading up to the Grand Slam.
Australia has had 28,708 Covid-19 cases and 909 deaths, according to the latest figures from the Johns Hopkins University of Medicine.
Originally scheduled to begin this month, the Australian Open was rescheduled from February 8-21 due to concerns about Covid-19.
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