The 2021 Australian Open has been postponed to early February over 70 tennis players and staff have been forced into an unexpected and strict quarantine period of two weeks.
The protocol was implemented after positive COVID-19 cases were detected on three of the 17 charter flights to the country. Australia, one of the few countries where the coronavirus pandemic is under control, usually requires all travelers entering the country to be quarantined in a hotel for 14 days before being admitted elsewhere in the country.
It is a strict routine supported by the Australian population that has kept COVID cases in the country to a minimum as they get out of control elsewhere in the world. Unfortunately, for many tennis players, this also means that they will now be locked indoors for a while they weren’t prepared for. Superstars like Novak Djokovic, Serena Williams and Naomi Osaka have had some leeway, however, as they were allowed out of the room to practice for hours on end.
The whole situation is a mess and while most tennis players handle it well, a few have filed their complaints on social media, scribbling over the food, the boredom and er, the inability to get a hairstylist.
World No. 13 Roberto Bautista Agut compared his imprisonment in his beautiful Melbourne hotel room to a prison sentence.
“It’s the same, it’s the same, but with WiFi,” he said during an interview. “These people have no idea of tennis, of practice courts, no idea of anything. It is therefore a complete disaster, because you have everything under control. “
Others took to social media without saying anything nice about the meals they were served.
Player Yulia Putintseva certainly had an unexpected companion to spend her time with.
If we have one obvious villain in the story, it’s Bernard Tomic’s quarantine partner Vanessa Sierra, who talked at length about the hardships of having just one bathroom and not having access to a hairstylist because she never washes her own hair.
According to ESPN, Novak Djokovic, world number 1, wrote to Tennis Australia officials with a list of “demands”, asking for players to be moved to “private homes with tennis courts.”
There were also quarantine violations by players.
The extensive quarantine measures have been ordered by the Australian government, which alone enforces long-standing rules. Doubles player Artem Sitak said Tennis Australia had warned them about this scenario.
As for how Australians look at the players, it’s less than sympathetic.
So it is clear that tennis players are treated like any other person who enters the country, and they are not happy about that. It’s absolutely stupid that players have to be quarantined in tight spaces for so long, but the real problem here is why the Australian Open takes place anyway. The world is still fighting a global pandemic, and all it takes is a little laxity to get the disease out of control. The government puts the health of the country first and rightly does not care about tennis pros gambling during a pandemic. Being stuck indoors for two weeks can be devastating to the mind and body, but it was a risk that all players knowingly did well.
All of this reminds us that sport is a privilege, and one that tennis players trapped in hotel rooms don’t seem to understand.