Australian Open records fourth Covid case as player warned for breaking rules
An Australian Open tennis player has been warned for breaching strict isolation rules by “opening his door” to talk to his friends, as players complain about “insane” quarantine requirements ahead of the tournament.
Four people have now tested positive for Covid-19 on charter planes bringing players in for the competition, which has forced 47 players into strict isolation where they cannot train for 14 days. However, tournament director Craig Tiley has confirmed the year’s first Grand Slam will go ahead from 8 February despite anger from players forced into hard quarantine.
“We are reviewing the schedule leading in to see what we can do to assist these players,” Tiley told the Nine Network on Sunday. “The Australian Open is going ahead and we will continue to do the best we possibly can do to ensure those players have the best opportunity.”
Earlier on Sunday, multiple playerssaid they were misled about the rules for the tournament, were promised they would be allowed to train, and are risking injury ahead of the competition.
On Saturday 47 players and 143 travellers were confined to their rooms for 14 days after one flight attendant and two passengers who were not players tested positive for Covid-19 across two charter planes coming into Melbourne.
Emma Cassar, the state’s Covid-19 quarantine commissioner, announced that a fourth person – a broadcaster – had also tested positive from one of the flights.
Although no players have tested positive so far, all those on board the affected flights were placed under stricter isolation rules.
All international arrivals to Australia, including returning Australians, have to spend 14 days in hotel quarantine, but initially tennis players competing in the Open were allowed to leave their rooms for five hours a day to practise and train.
French player Alize Cornet said confining players to their rooms for 14 days without training, before a major tournament, would lead to injury.
Kazakhstan’s Yulia Putintseva said “no one told us” whole planeloads of players could be affected, and said she might not have travelled to Melbourne if she had known.
Cornet also said organisers had promised players this situation would not eventuate.
“We’ve been told that the plane would be separated by section of 10 people and that if one person of your section was positive, then you had to isolate,” she wrote on Twitter. “Not that the whole plane had to.”
In response, Cassar told reporters that the rules for players had not changed.
She also announced that two people in quarantine, one a player and one not, had been caught committing “low-level” breaches of the stricter isolation rules, and could be fined by Victoria police.
“One player opened his door to try and have a conversation with his training mates down the hallway,” Cassar said. “The other was another gentleman who shouted Uber Eats to some other people on the floor and was praising himself for his great efforts, and opened his door to do so.
“It is very low level, but they are dangerous acts that we cannot tolerate.”
Cassar added that “quarantine is hard” but said she “makes no apologies” for enforcing the rules.
Craig Tiley, the CEO of Tennis Australia, also ruled out delaying the tournament despite the pressure from players.
Cornet, who was not on any of the affected flights and is free to train, still said the rules would harm her fellow players.
In a series of tweets, she said she was “grateful” and “privileged” to be allowed into Melbourne when Australians overseas or in other states were not, and had no issues with 14 days in quarantine.
“But we are not asking the Victorian residents to play a professional sport afterward,” she said. “The risks of injury after a two-week break is huge. Maybe I’m too focused on my side of the story, but that’s also why we are here for.”
Romanian player Sorana Cirstea wrote on Twitter: “I have no issues to stay 14 days in the room watching Netflix. Believe me this is a dream come true, holiday even.
“What we cant do is COMPETE after we have stayed 14 days on a couch. This is the issue, not the quarantine rule.”
On Sunday the federal health minister, Greg Hunt, backed the decision to go ahead with the tournament, and said the Victorian state government had “taken appropriate steps” in applying stricter rules.
The 47 affected players include twotime Australian Open champion Victoria Azarenka, 2016 Australian Open champion Angelique Kerber, Sloane Stephens and Kei Nishikori.
Cornet also predicted that the strictness of the rules meant “half of the players” in the tournament would eventually have to isolate, and said it was “insane”, in a now-deleted tweet.
“Weeks and weeks of practise and hard work going to waste for one person positive to Covid in a 3/4 empty plane,” she said. “Sorry but this is insane.”
More than 1,200 players, their coaching staff and tournament officials are due to arrive in Melbourne for the Australian Open, which begins on 8 February.
Other players competing in the tournament – including top seeds Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, Naomi Osaka and Serena Williams – are quarantining in Adelaide, in South Australia, rather than Melbourne, and have not been affected.
On Sunday, Hunt told reporters he thought the Victorian government’s quarantine rules were appropriate.
“We respect the steps they’re taking and also the way that they’ve responded,” he said. “We think that that’s appropriate.
“With regards to the Australian Open, we respect not only the right, but also the processes of particular states to screen, to monitor and to conduct events – whether it’s the Melbourne Test, the Sydney Test, the Brisbane Test and the Adelaide Test, whether it is the current event, which the Victorian government has been planning. And we think that they have taken appropriate steps.”
But he said the federal government’s priority had been to bring stranded Australians home. Despite the recent reduction in flight arrival caps, and the decision by Emirates to suspend flights to Australia, he pointed to the government’s announcement on Saturday of 20 additional facilitated flights for returning Australians.