Controversy surrounding the Australian Open continues to grow as Tennis Australia’s chief executive Craig Tiley denied that any tournament player tested positive for Covid-19, hours after the Victorian government said two players confirmed cases early in the day.
Tiley told reporters at a news conference on Tuesday that of seven cases confirmed on three chartered flights to Melbourne, one was a flight attendant and the rest was part of the entourage of players. Tiley said he could not comment on the government’s statement and acknowledged that several players showed viral spread, suggesting that they had already been infected.
Players arriving in the Australian state of Victoria were quarantined 14 days before their grand slam games. Most were given five hours a day to go out and train in strict biosafety bubbles, but 72 players were unable to leave their hotel rooms and cannot practice, under strict quarantine rules after passengers on their flights tested positive for Covid-19 .
As a result, some athletes expressed frustration with the situation they are in and expressed concern that those who were allowed to leave could have an unfair advantage.
Tiley also addressed the accusations of some players who said that the risk of strict quarantine was not properly communicated prior to departure for Australia. He said that event organizers are in contact with groups of players frequently and that the idea that they do not know about quarantine policies “is simply not true”.
The tournament director believes that some players may have had different experiences in the pandemic and ignored the reality of what quarantine would be like, as they themselves had not experienced one.
When asked about the accommodations being made to the 72 players under rigid block, Tiley said that Tennis Australia has “great empathy to support them”.
“I don’t know exactly what that means yet, but we are definitely going to look at scheduling, courts of practice, hours of practice, courts where they practice, availability of time and they will have priority.”
Australia has allowed 1,270 foreigners to enter the country to attend the event, despite some of the world’s most stringent arrival policies. Last year, the state capital of Victoria, Melbourne – Australia’s second most populous city – was plunged into a brutal blockade for 111 days.
Aware that many are looking at the Australian Open as a preview of the possible logistical challenges for hosting large-scale international sporting events in the midst of a pandemic, Tiley said: “I don’t think any of us have realized the difficulty of managing such an gigantic task in delivering this. “
“I think we will provide a lot of intelligence for the Olympic games,” he said of the athletes’ logistics.
“If we succeed, I am much more confident that the Olympic Games can also happen.”
Read more about the Australian Open turbulence here:
