Tennis players have no exceptions in Australia, Strycova in quarantine

No VIP benefits will be given to the world’s best tennis players during the Australian Open. The leadership of the smallest continent must respect the COVID arrangements without exception. Seventy tennis players, including Barbora Strýcová, were in a difficult situation before the start.

The first Grand Slam of the season will start on February 8 and the tennis players will be in a strict bubble. The Premier of the State of Victoria, Daniel Andrews, has clarified that he will not be granting exemptions because of the tournament. Even a letter and intercession from Novak Djokovic didn’t help.

“They can express their demands, but the answer is no. The rules are the same for everyone and they knew that before they came here. The virus doesn’t make exceptions and therefore neither do we,” Andrews, the Australian prime minister, said, according to DPA news agency.

Under the normal form of a two-week quarantine after arrival in Australia, tennis players are allowed to leave the hotel for preparation, albeit for a maximum of five hours a day. That is why they are moving to Australia unusually early, so that they can at least have a few training sessions before the start of the tournament and have time to recover in case of infection.

But the bad luck is with about seventy tennis players, including Barbora Strýcová and Tomáš Macháč, who travelled on a plane with a man who tested positive for coronavirus on arrival. Tests conducted after charter flights from Los Angeles and Abu Dhabi landed revealed three positive cases, forcing 47 players to spend 14 days in complete isolation in hotel rooms. They will face a fortnight of strict quarantine with no training.

“It‘s their rules, they’ve been in a complete lockdown for five months, so I understand they’re worried we won’t bring anything in,” the world number eight doubles player told iDNES.cz. But before her arrival, she did not know about the possibility of quarantine without training. So she had to install a small gym in her room.

The strict isolation does not apply to our other representatives.

It is difficult to say how the restriction of training and exercise will affect the form of individual players in the tournament itself, three weeks before the start.

Sources:: iDNES.cz, Barbora Strýcová, DPA