The landing in Melbourne was brutal for 47 players due to participate in the Australian Open (February 8-21): they are banned from training for two weeks for having traveled on two flights or other passengers have tested positive for the coronavirus.
The state of Victoria, where Melbourne is located, first announced two positive cases aboard a flight from Los Angeles carrying 24 players, then the Australian Open confirmed another case aboard ‘an Abu Dhabi-Melbourne flight, aboard 23 players.
#AusOpen update … https://t.co/buIRzjfXmG
Even though the three people diagnosed positive were not gamers, all passengers are considered contact cases and were therefore placed in strict quarantine for fourteen days. “No player or member of their entourage will be able to interrupt quarantine to participate in training”, said a spokesperson for the Victoria State quarantine program.
The 47 players concerned are therefore deprived of the five hours of daily training authorized during the fortnight that all participants in the first Grand Slam tournament of the year must observe in a hotel room upon their arrival in Australia.
According to local media, Belarusian Victoria Azarenka (winner of the Australian Open in 2012 and 2013), American Sloane Stephens and Japan’s Kei Nishikori were on board the Los Angeles-Melbourne flight and other crowned players. in Grand Slams were in the one that took off from Abu Dhabi (the Canadian Bianca Andreescu, the German Angelique Kerber and the Russian Svetlana Kuznetsova).
We have just been informed that a person on our flight from Abu Dhabi has returned a positive COVID-19 test. As ac… https://t.co/gOjsx4dPa4
Two cities of containment
” It’s absurd “, denounced on Twitter the French Alizé Cornet, who arrived in Melbourne on another flight.
“Soon half of the players in the Australian Open will have to isolate themselves. Weeks and weeks of training and hard work are going to be wasted for a positive person on a plane that is three quarters empty ”, she regretted, before deleting her tweet in front of the reactions provoked.
This seems to be a very sensitive subject and I understand it. We are privileged, indeed, but please try to get our… https://t.co/nqlLPjtnoI
Players had already been moved that a contingent of around fifty participants, including Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, Dominic Thiem, Serena Williams, Naomi Osaka and Simona Halep, could carry out their fifteen days of confinement in Adelaide and not in Melbourne like the rest of the players.
The tournament management had to enact very strict and very restrictive health rules in order to make the event acceptable to the local authorities. The tournament was notably postponed by three weeks and the qualifications moved to Dubai (women) and Doha (men) from January 10 to 13, to allow some 1,270 participants to respect a fortnight upon their arrival.
Update from Adelaide: SA Health has confirmed that there is no one who has an active COVID-19 infection in the enti… https://t.co/jl5qKjn7TY
