MELBOURNE • Australian Open boss Craig Tiley yesterday insisted most players supported being locked down in hard quarantine as health officials confirmed two players scheduled to participate in the first Grand Slam of the year had tested positive for the coronavirus, taking the cluster of cases to seven.
The Victoria state health department said two players and a third person associated with the tournament - a woman in her 20s, and two men in their 30s - had returned positive results.
The Open, already delayed by three weeks to Feb 8, has been rocked by Covid-19 infections among the 1,200 players and staff who flew into the country on charter flights from last week.
A total of nine people have tested positive during a mandatory two-week quarantine ahead of the hard-court Major in Melbourne, but two cases were deemed to be past infections yesterday.
Positive cases on three charter flights have left 72 players confined to their hotel rooms, rather than being allowed out to train for five hours like the other competitors. As such, players have been vociferous in their complaints on social media but health officials have reiterated none of them have yet been cleared to train.
Some players have complained that the possibility of a hard lockdown was not explained before they travelled to Australia, and have raised concerns about their fitness for lead-up events beginning on Jan 31.
Many have also turned their hotel rooms into makeshift gyms and resorted to hitting tennis balls off the walls of their rooms.
Yet Hollywood actor Matt Damon has been granted an exemption from hotel quarantine after arriving to film the Thor: Love and Thunder movie in Sydney. The American, who flew in via private jet, will stay in a rented house under security and pay for hospital-grade cleaning for his 14-day quarantine.
But Australian authorities are standing firm on the Open, saying mandatory hotel quarantine for people arriving for the tournament was essential to stop Covid-19, as the country recorded another day with no new locally acquired cases.
"People are free to ask for things, but the answer is no," Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews said in reference to a list of requests, including moving players from hotels to private homes with tennis courts, drawn up by world No. 1 Novak Djokovic to Tennis Australia.
"They knew what they were travelling into and we are not cutting corners or making special arrangements."
Tiley said he had a call with 500 players to address concerns and the "vast majority" had been supportive of the strict protocols.
"(They) know that this is the contribution that they have to make in order to get the privilege of when they do come out to compete for A$80 million (S$82 million) in prize money," he told the Nine Network.
"So we will turn the corner on those few that don't have the right approach to this. But the rest have been really good."
But he conceded that the players undergoing hard quarantine are at a disadvantage to rivals who can train up to five hours a day.
"Yes, it's not an even playing field as far as preparation goes but we're going to play our part to try to even it up as much as possible," he said without giving details.
Mr Andrews gave hope that restrictions on some of the 72 players may be relaxed upon further testing.
"If you've got say 30 people who are deemed a close contact because they've been on a plane with a case, and the case is no longer an active case, but a historic shedding, well then, that would release those people from that hard lockdown."
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, REUTERS
