Australian Open tennis players have started to leave hotel quarantine after two weeks of isolation, but those still confined to their rooms are expressing frustration on social media.
All players will be released between Thursday and Sunday as the clock runs down on each flight’s 14-day quarantine period. But those players in “hard quarantine” have been told they will have to wait an extra day to leave their rooms.
Players were notionally to be allowed out of their hotel rooms to practise and train for five hours a day, but the 72 players that arrived on three charter flights with positive Covid-19 cases on board have been forced to stay in their rooms for the full 14 days, making preparing for the championship extremely difficult.
US world No 49 Tennys Sandgren expressed displeasure that his hard quarantine would be extended until midnight Friday.
“I just found out we’re not going to be able to leave the room until midnight tomorrow,” Sandgren said on Instagram.
“That will put us at close to 15 days in this room. It’s also another day we can’t practice. We play Saturday, Sunday, Monday, play a match on Tuesday. A competitive tennis match … [Including travel] 16 days off, three days hitting. Tennis match.
“My name’s Tennis Australia and I’m sooooo cool.”
Sandgren went on to say he had been told that the first day players spent in hard quarantine counted as “day zero” rather than “day one”.
“So they started the count from zero?” he said.
The charter flights have so far been connected to eight Covid-19 cases, including Spanish player Paula Badosa.
Sandgren has already faced criticism after Australian authorities decided to allow him to board a plane to from the US to Melbourne despite testing positive to Covid-19. This was due to viral shedding after the player was infected in November, and he has since recovered.
Thursday’s Instagram video renewed online condemnation with many labelling Sandgren a “sook”.
Let’s be honest, sook is a dumb word
— Tennys Sandgren (@TennysSandgren) January 28, 2021
The player criticised those who referenced the stark difference in Australian and US Covid-19 death rates.
“Comparing country’s death rates as a diss is truly disgusting. Just call me a piece of shit like a normal person,” he wrote on Twitter.
Comparing country’s death rates as a diss is truly disgusting
Just call me a piece of shit like a normal person
— Tennys Sandgren (@TennysSandgren) January 28, 2021
Georgia’s Oksana Kalashnikova has also expressed her displeasure at the delay.
French player Richard Gasquet was one of the first players to leave the Pullman Hotel in Melbourne.
The 34-year-old told the Age newspaper that his two week “soft quarantine” wasn’t too gruelling.
“You know we could practise five hours a day, so it was no problem,” he said. “Two hours of tennis was enough, [plus] I could go to gym, I could see the physio. Everything was perfect.”
Gasquet said that, along with training, fine dining was on the top of his priority list.
“In France, there are no restaurants [open] at all, so very happy to be in Australia.”
A number of players in including grand slam champions Serena Williams and Rafael Nadal have been released in Adelaide where they will play an exhibition match before travelling to Melbourne ahead of the first day of the Open on 8 February.