The 2021 Australian Open was postponed until early February as more than 70 tennis players and team were forced into an unexpected and strict two-week quarantine period.
The protocol was implemented after the discovery of positive cases of COVID-19 on three of the 17 charter flights to the country. Australia, one of the few countries that has the coronavirus pandemic under control, generally requires that all travelers entering the country be quarantined for 14 days in a hotel before being allowed anywhere else in the country.
It is a strict routine that has the support of the Australian people and has kept COVID cases to a minimum in the country as they get out of control in other parts of the world. Unfortunately, for many tennis players, this also means that they will now be confined indoors for a period of time for which they were not prepared. Superstars like Novak Djokovic, Serena Williams and Naomi Osaka, however, had some leeway and could leave their rooms to practice for hours on end.
The whole situation is a mess and while most tennis players have handled it well, some took their complaints to social media, criticizing food, boredom and, uh, the inability to get a hairdresser.
No. 13 in the world Roberto Bautista Agut compared being confined in his beautiful Melbourne hotel room to being in prison.
“It’s the same, it’s the same, but with Wi-Fi,” he said during an interview. “These people have no idea about tennis, training courts, anything. It is a complete disaster because of that, because of the control of everything. “
Others accessed social media with nothing good to say about the meals being served.
Player Yulia Putintseva at least had an unexpected company to share her time with.
If we have a clear villain in the story, it is Bernard Tomic’s quarantine companion, Vanessa Sierra, who spoke at length about the difficulty of having only one bathroom and not having access to a hairdresser, because he never washes his own hair.
According to ESPN, world number 1 Novak Djokovic wrote to Tennis Australia officials with a list of “demands”, asking that players be transferred to “private homes with tennis courts”.
Player quarantine violations also occurred.
Extensive quarantine measures are at the behest of the Australian government, which is only applying old rules. Doubles player Artem Sitak said Tennis Australia warned them of this scenario.
As for the way the Australians are seeing the players, well, it’s not nice at all.
It is clear, then, that tennis players are being treated like everyone else who comes to the country, which is something they are not satisfied with. It is absolutely a pity that players have to be quarantined for so long, but the real question here is why the Australian Open is going on anyway. The world is still fighting a global pandemic and a little relaxation is enough to get the disease out of control. The government is putting the country’s health first and rightly doesn’t care about tennis professionals who made a bet during a pandemic. Two weeks in the house can be devastating to the mind and body, but it was a risk that all players knew well.
All of this is a reminder that sports are a privilege and that tennis players trapped in hotel rooms do not seem to hold on.