The head of Victoria’s coronavirus quarantine authority says it will have zero tolerance for breaches from those connected to the Australian Open, as some tennis players claim they weren’t told about strict quarantine rules.
A member of the broadcast team travelling from Los Angeles was on Sunday announced as a fourth person to test positive to COVID-19 from Australian Open charter flights.
All passengers from two of the flights into Victoria, one from Los Angeles and the other from Abu Dhabi, have been placed into mandatory 14-day quarantine after positive cases onboard.
They include 47 players who will be confined to their hotel rooms and unable to train for two weeks leading up to the tournament. The coach of 2019 US Open champion Bianca Andreescu, Sylvain Bruneau, confirmed he was one of the four positive COVID-19 caases.
All international players were originally given an exemption to train for up to five hours a day if they returned a negative test. But the positive test results prompted stricter quarantine under Victorian government orders, prompting complaints of unfair advantages to those now-confined players.
Training has been put on hold for all quarantined players pending final test results, despite all players and their training partners being cleared of the virus.
COVID-19 Quarantine Victoria (CQV) Commissioner Emma Cassar on Sunday said there had been cases of “challenging behaviour” from some players and support staff in quarantine.
“I can give you two examples – a player who opened his door to try and have a conversation with his training mate down the hallway. Again, he’s got a phone, you can pick up the phone and use the telephone as opposed to putting you and others at risk,” she said.
“The other was another gentleman who shouted some UberEats to some other people on the floor and was praising his great efforts and opened his door to do so.
“It is very low level, but they are dangerous acts that we cannot tolerate … they have been formerly warned, and Victoria Police will continue to follow up those who haven’t been spoken to yet.”
She said police presence had been increased at the Open hotels, warning those who were “persistently” found breaching the rules could be fined or transferred to a complex care hotel where an officer would be stationed outside their door.
Ms Cassar added while “quarantine is hard, and is a very new and difficult circumstance” for players and staff, there would be “zero tolerance” for any breaches.
“There are a small few who are testing their procedures and we’d ask them to stay in their rooms. These procedures are in place to keep people safe,” she said.
“And when people come out of their rooms, it’s not just about the breach of the order that they’re on, it’s also placing them and our staff and the community at risk.
Claims players weren’t aware of quarantine rules
Some players in quarantine have claimed on social media they were told only those in close contact with a positive case would have to go into strict quarantine – not all passengers on the flight.
Romania’s Sorana Cirstea said she wouldn’t have come to Australia if she had known the entire plane-load of travellers would be put into isolation because of a positive test.
Swiss world No.12 Belinda Bencic insisted on Twitter that the quarantine rules were changed for players on arrival.
“We made our decision to come here from rules that were sent to us. Then we arrived and received an information/rule book with more/new rules that we did not know about,” Bencic tweeted.
“We are not complaining (about being) in quarantine. We are complaining because of unequal practice/playing conditions before quite important tournaments.”
However Artem Sitak, the men’s doubles world No.78 disputed the claims and said Tennis Australia told players of the risks in a conference call about a month ago.
He said not many players were on the call, when TA told them that the health authorities would make the final decision about who would go into lockdown in the event of a positive test.
Australian Open boss Craig Tiley said players were warned it was one scenario but that the tournament was at the mercy of the Victorian government.
“The determination of who was and who wasn’t a close contact was going to be entirely up to the health department, and they’re doing what is necessary in order to keep our community safe,” he said.
Ms Cassar on Sunday said the rules were made “very clear” to Australian Open organisers in advance and had not changed. But she conceded she had not spoken with the players themselves.
“The rules of close contacts haven’t changed, and there’s no other way you can consider this. If you’re on a plane for 16 to 24 hours in air that circulates throughout the plane, you are a close contact,” she said.
“The program is set up to keep people safe. We will not be modifying the program or watering it down under any circumstances.”
Earlier on Sunday, Mr Tiley confirmed the tournament would be proceeding on schedule on 8 February, however opened the door to scheduling changes to help players who had been forced into quarantine.
He said they would consider adjusting the schedule for the lead-in ATP and WTA tournaments, due to start in Melbourne on 31 January and 1 February.
With AAP.
