The inconvenience with the coronavirus slowed down tennis in Australia; doubts fly over the Open Source: Archive – Credit: REUTERS
Before professional tennis raised the curtain in the first hours of January and with the five months of suspension of the 2020 competition as a precedent, someone raised their voice and sentenced: “This year, the rivals of the tennis players will not be the players they have on the other side of the network, but the coronavirus.” Beyond the nuance of reflection, it has a portion of reality. Contagions, quarantines, isolations, swabs, closed airports (or open with restrictions), canceled tournaments, special permits, uncertainty. All of this is part of a difficult landscape for a global sport, with action on every continent every week.
Everything seemed to be going perfectly in Melbourne, the dynamic city of a country with Covid-19 under control, until, a few hours before the start of the Australian Open (scheduled for 8 today), the alarm was turned on. The matches that were projected for this Thursday at Melbourne Park (of the ATP Cup, the two ATP 250 and the three WTA) were canceled after an employee of the Grand Hyatt hotel, one of the three official accommodations, tested positive for coronavirus (and, supposedly, sanitary protected) intended for the protagonists who came to that Aussie portion to compete on the tour. Between 500 and 600 people, including tennis players, tournament officials and employees from different areas, were isolated, forced to stay in the rooms, during the early morning in Argentina they underwent a new test and until they had a negative test they will be considered ” casual contacts “. Tennis Australia ventured that it would later announce plans for this Friday, but the unfavorable weather forecast (100% rain) It suggests that the pending schedule of the six competitions could not be completed, as long as health approval is obtained, of course.
Is the Australian Open in danger? If you think about the fact that the protagonists of the rackets have already quarantined and are there, in the commitments with the sponsors and the TV, in the government authorization for 30,000 spectators to attend the complex per day and in the efforts of the organizers to sustain the contest, the answer is “no”. But in the last hours the State of Victoria once again applied more severe restrictions to daily life and if it strictly applied its protocols, the players would have to be isolated for 14 days as potential contacts, although in that case it would mean saying goodbye to the Grand Slam. .
Health Authorities have advised us that a Hotel Quarantine worker has tested positive for COVID-19. Those associated with the AO who quarantined at the hotel now need to be tested and isolate until they receive a negative test result.&- #AusOpen (@AustralianOpen)
February 3, 2021
Daniel Andrews, Prime Minister of the state whose capital is Melbourne, gave an emergency press conference on Wednesday night in Australia and announced that masks should be mandatory again in closed places, that the number of people that can be received at homes will be reduced from 30 to 15 and that the offices will be able to receive only 50% of the personnel. In that context, the tournament appears to be in jeopardy. The case of the worker infected with Covid-19 ended the 28-day streak of null community transmission in Victoria. “We have to assume that this person has infected others,” Andrews said, concerned.
The Victoria Health Department explained that the infected person last worked at the Hyatt on January 29 and that he underwent a test at the end of his shift, with a negative result. However, he later developed symptoms, He was exposed to a new test on February 2 and the result was positive. Many of the best tennis players in the world stay at that hotel and those who do not, such as Spaniard Rafael Nadal, who rests in the Crown Towers, less than two kilometers away, are at risk from contact with teammates (in the ATP Cup) that do sleep at the designated site. There are also Argentine players involved. The national team was scheduled to meet Japan this morning, for the last match of Group D of the ATP Cup (no longer able to advance to the semifinals). Meanwhile, Rosario Nadia Podoroska, after her shocking victory against the Czech and 9th, Petra Kvitova, 5-7, 6-1 and 7-6 (9-7), had to face Marketa Vondrousova for the quarterfinals. final of the WTA Yarra Valley Classic. Everything was put on hold.
Nadia Podoroska moved the foundations of women’s tennis last October by surpassing the Roland Garros qualification and reaching the semi-finals. The 23-year-old tennis player entered the French Open being the 131st in the world and went as Top 50, a place in the ranking that an Argentinean has not occupied since 2011 (Gisela Dulko). Life, at least the sports life, changed one hundred percent. After years of working and looking for that goal, he started playing in the big leagues, with all that that implies. More pressure, more media exposure, thornier challenges in higher category tournaments, better contracts, more facilities to build a large team. And that, mainly, is one of his challenges: to stay with his feet on the ground and show that that performance (that of the three weeks in Paris, above all, but that of an entire valuable year) was not temporary. She herself described as “a wake-up call” the defeat she suffered, last January, in the WTA 500 in Abu Dhabi, against the Spanish Sara Sorribes Tormo (at that time, 66 °), by 6-3 and 6-3 . But in one of the WTAs of the baptized Melbourne Summer Series he made a lot of noise again.
“How many beautiful messages, how many good energies they send me,” said Podoroska, 47, after obtaining, against Kvitova, the second victory of her career against a Top 10. The first success of that category had been in the quarterfinals of Roland Garros: 6-2 and 6-4 against the Ukrainian Elina Svitolina, 5th. Against Kvitova (2011 and 2014 Wimbledon winner), on Court 7 at Melbourne Park, Podoroska put on an extremely interesting performance, bravely making up for some ups and downs and missed opportunities. He showed courage to win the tie-break of the third set, for example: he got to be 2-5. Again it made an impact. And it goes for more.
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