New York (AFP)

Hungarian Timea Babos on Sunday underlined the "injustice" of her exclusion from the US Open doubles tournament the day before after her partner Kristina Mladenovic was banned from leaving her room for health reasons.

Unlike the Frenchwoman, recluse in her New York hotel while awaiting the end of her quarantine period next weekend, Babos was able to return home immediately.

"I'm at home. I'm sitting in my kitchen and crying… I'm just starting to realize what happened and I don't understand. It's terribly unfair, I don't see any reasonable reason. so that it turned out like this, ”she wrote on social media.

"Let's look at the facts: Benoît Paire's positive PCR test dated back ten days before (after 4 negatives) and in recent days his results were negative. The others, close to him, have never tested positive. 4 and Kiki 11, I repeat 11 !!!, negative tests for Covid-19. And yet, we were locked up ", indignant the Hungarian.

"On Friday they had already gone out of their way to ensure that Mannarino could play (his third round against Zverev). He had been allowed to play and, the next day, we did not. It is simply an injustice! Incomprehensible! 'tis not fair, "she continues.

"I thought a lot about whether I should go or not (at the US Open, editor's note), I was asking myself a lot of questions. But I'm an athlete, I want to compete (...) They deprived us of a chance to lift a Grand Slam trophy, not to mention the material side and the psychological damage! But why? I don't know, I don't understand ... really ", she concludes.

Associated with Mladenovic, Babaos won the Australian Open in 2018 and Roland-Garros in 2019.

Following Paire's positive coronavirus test, 7 players, including Mladenovic, were subjected to a reinforced protocol providing in particular for almost total isolation and which should allow them to play the US Open as long as they remained negative .

But on Friday, Mannarino and Mladenovic who were the last in the line were told that local health authorities were now banning them from leaving their hotel.

After hours of palaver, the USTA got Mannarino to play (he lost), but not Mladenovic.

© 2020 AFP