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MELBOURNE, Australia – It was late December and Craig Tiley was feeling well. After months of negotiations with government officials and the world’s top tennis players, Tennis Australia boss Tiley has finally been given the green light to host the Australian Open amid the pandemic.
Health officials and government officials had come to the idea of more than a thousand people arriving from overseas, including hundreds of players who would enjoy privileges during their 14-day quarantine period as citizens Australians could not. And the players had agreed to spend most of their day in their hotel rooms for two weeks and limit their training time on the pitch to just two hours a day.
“The players are excellent,” Tiley said of the deal for a limited quarantine period. “They realized that if they didn’t want to do it, there would be no Australian Open, no pre-events and no chance of getting $ 83 million in prizes.”
A month later, Tiley, a native of South Africa and a former college coach in the United States, is at the center of growing anger from all sides after six people on three charters tested positive for the coronavirus upon arrival in Melbourne.
The positive tests have confused citizens, some of whom have complained that Tennis Australia is putting residents at risk to appease millionaire tennis players. The Victoria state health official took action, ordering everyone on the chartered planes, including 72 players who were supposed to be able to train and spend time in the tennis center’s gym, to stay in their hotel room for 14 days. , although none of the players had tested positive.
Then came a report that top ranked male player Novak Djokovic, the leader of a fledgling players’ association, issued a series of demands, including a reduction in the isolation period for players who continued to be tested negative and move as many players as possible to private homes with a tennis court to facilitate training. Health officials were quick to dismiss them.
“We were rushed by the flights and the challenges,” Tiley said Monday afternoon during a teleconference with some of the quarantined people. “I had no place to hide.”
Within days, Tiley has grown from one of the most visible cheerleaders in Australian sport to her main punching bag, as her organization’s signature tournament has grown from a potential celebration in the rare corner of the world. where the virus has been kept under control to another symbol of viral uncertainty.
In the past 48 hours, government officials including members of parliament and Agriculture Minister David Littleproud have taken to television and attacked the decision to prioritize tennis over what ‘they believed to be more basic needs, such as recruiting seasonal workers, relaxing state borders. restrictions or allow some 40,000 Australians to return from abroad. They can’t, in part, due to the strict limits on daily international arrivals.
The limits remain even though Australia long ago ended one of the world’s toughest viral lockdowns. In Melbourne, police imposed a nearly four-month assault on the virus. Meanwhile, schools and businesses were closed and residents were only allowed out for an hour (and later two) a day, either to exercise or to go to the grocery store. or at the pharmacy. They also had to stay within three miles of their home unless they had a permit.
The strict approach worked. Australia has one of the lowest per capita infection rates among major countries.
When the lockdown was lifted, Tiley spent months fighting for special privileges for tennis players that he said were essential to saving the tournament. He insisted that the championship be as close as possible to its traditional start in mid-January, rather than moving it to another country or delaying it until December, when vaccines should be more widely available. .
He has pledged to spend millions to charter planes and cover the costs of a limited quarantine of arriving players, as well as a full quarantine for most of the other more than 1,200 people to come to the Open d Australia, which is scheduled to start on February 8. and three debugging events.
In an interview in late December, Tiley said there is no guarantee life will be more normal by December 2021. “Is it risky now? Yes, but it could be just as risky in December, ”he said.
The immediate risks became evident shortly after players started arriving late last week. First, it was learned on Saturday that a flight attendant and another passenger had tested positive on a flight departing from Los Angeles (a third person subsequently tested positive). Next, Tiley announced that a passenger on an Abu Dhabi plane – Sylvain Bruneau, coach of 2019 US Open champion Bianca Andreescu, admitted it was him – had been tested. positive. On Sunday it was someone, still not a player, on the plane from Doha, and another from the flight from Abu Dhabi.
More than 70 players who chose to come to Australia assuming they would be able to train as long as they tested negative were ordered to stay in their hotel rooms for two weeks. Many have taken to social media to complain. Some asked to leave the country immediately and were told they could not.
Daniel Andrews, Premier of Victoria, rejected such measures. “People are free to provide lists of requests, but the answer is no,” Andrews told reporters. “There is no special treatment here.”
Tiley has denied complaints from players that Tennis Australia failed to warn them of the potential for a strict quarantine without access to tennis courts.
He said there were weekly phone calls for four months with members of the players’ councils for the men’s and women’s professional tours in which he made it clear that Australia had a mandatory 14-day quarantine requirement for anyone who has close contact with someone who had tested. positive.
“I reminded them that this was always going to be a risk,” Tiley said on a conference call Monday. “Even now,” he said, “if there is a major outbreak, Victoria’s health commissioner may next week decide that no player can train during quarantine.
Monday brought further complications, with officials unexpectedly canceling all training at Melbourne Park until 3:30 p.m. because they could not safely coordinate the arrival of so many until later today.
Daria Abramowicz, the sports psychologist for 2020 Roland Garros women’s singles champion Iga Swiatek, who missed her practice session on Monday, said on Monday that all the uncertainty was straining players’ nerves.
“Information gives a feeling of security and stability,” she said. “Everyone needs the adjustment tools now.”
Tiley is committed to doing whatever he can to make the players more comfortable, with additional food and exercise equipment. He said officials were reviewing the schedule for the competition, which was due to start Jan.31 to find any adjustments that could be made to help players unable to train for two weeks, other than hitting balls against their bedroom walls. hotel.
“It’s not a great situation,” he said. “You are stuck in your room for 14 days.”
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