Roger, Rafa and Co raise £3m for fires

ROGER FEDERER, Rafael Nadal and Serena Williams led a squad of star players yesterday in staging an exhibition event at Melbourne Park which raised £2.8million for bushfire victims. Beneath their laudable efforts, resentment continued among rank-and-file colleagues about being forced to play the qualifying event in adverse air conditions. One prominent backbencher, American Noah Rubin, accused organisers of sitting ‘in offices with air conditioning’ while sending out lesser known names to play in an environment hazardous to their health. Victoria’s chief health officer, Dr Brett Sutton, described scenes of players suffering on Tuesday as ‘awful’ and called for Tennis Australia to develop a coherent policy on air quality. Late yesterday afternoon a biblical rainstorm in Melbourne cleared the air before the exhibition event and was welcomed for reasons far more profound than anything to do with sport. Rubin, the world No 250 who lost in the first round of qualifying, is one of most prominent spokesmen for lower-ranked players and said: ‘I love coming here, it has just been a bit disappointing how it has been run in the past few days. I don’t know what they’re trying to hide from us. ‘I’m going up to some face to face, and that’s when the ATP or Tennis Australia takes a step back and they’re like, “We didn’t want this conversation from somebody who’s not No 5 in the world. Who are you?”.’