Paris (AFP)

Not yet launched, already heckled: Roland-Garros, exceptionally postponed from spring to autumn because of the Covid-19, experienced its first turbulence even before experiencing its first exchanges, with five players excluded from qualifying before their start on Monday.

It was Sunday evening, only a dozen hours before the first matches of the men's singles qualifying on Monday, that the Parisian Grand Slam confirmed that "two players tested positive for Covid-19 and three other players declared + contact cases + of their trainer tested positive for Covid-19 ".

"In accordance with health protocol, these five players were removed from the qualifying table (...) and will remain isolated for seven days", then indicated the tournament.

This rebound, however, generated incomprehension and questions.

Among the five players concerned, the Bosnian Damir Dzumhur, ex-top 30 who fell back beyond 100th place in the world, pays the consequences of a positive test from his trainer Petar Popovic, with whom he shared his hotel room.

However, the latter already had the new coronavirus some time ago, which raises questions about the reliability of the test.

"We're sure it was a false positive because my trainer has antibodies," Dzumhur laments on Instagram. He was not allowed to take a second test. I am devastated. "

Same scenario for the American Ernesto Escobedo, 172nd in the world, ejected from the table after the positive test of his trainer Lalo Vicencio, who, too, explains however having "developed antibodies against the virus after having had the Covid-19 ago some months".

According to the Spanish press, the three other players concerned would be Uzbek Denis Istomin, Spaniard Bernabe Zapata Miralles and Serbian Pedja Krstin.

"We define rules, we decide to follow them, we try to keep strict protocols", responds to the French Tennis Federation (FFT), organizer of the tournament.

- 900 tests carried out -

In total, some 900 tests were performed on the players, as well as their entourage, between Thursday and Sunday.

But the first report announced Sunday evening only reports the results for the men's qualifications.

New positive cases, first of all for the women's singles qualifications, the draw of which was scheduled for Monday afternoon, cannot therefore be ruled out.

And the troubles may not stop there for Roland-Garros.

From Strasbourg, where she is engaged this week, Alizé Cornet estimated with AFP that the players and the public "could be better separated" and hoped that "it will be better done at Roland Garros because there will be more public, more of players, therefore more risk ".

"It's completely paradoxical: we are locked in a hotel, we are prevented from going out, we take all the hyper protocol literally, and besides that, we will meet people" who massage each other and "do not do not respect social distancing at all. There is something wrong, "she is surprised.

"With all the documents that I have to fill out for Roland Garros, it is in the interest that there is not a fan within two meters of me", quipped the American player Noah Rubin (230th) on Twitter A week ago.

And if, faced with the deterioration of the health situation, the specter of closed doors reappears?

The "limitation of the number of participants in major sporting events" is part of the "new measures, necessarily more restrictive" under study "according to the evolution of the situation in the coming days", outlined the director of the Regional health agency of Ile-de-France Aurélien Rousseau in the Journal du Dimanche.

Since the beginning of September, Roland-Garros has been overtaken twice in the space of ten days by the reality of the Covid-19, with a gauge first tightened to 11,500, then to 5,000 spectators per day at most.

© 2020 AFP