• Djokovic.Australia denies his requests to ease quarantine

A total of 72 players and members of their teams are currently in strict quarantine after arriving in Melbourne on one of four charter flights affected by the virus.

This Tuesday it was officially confirmed that

two tennis players from the Australian Open tested positive

for covid-19, for which there are already seven people infected related to the tournament.

A chaos that threatens the celebration of the first 'major' of the course, whose start is scheduled for February 8.

Roberto Bautista's harsh words of complaint have added fuel to the fire.

The Spaniard harshly criticized the strict quarantine measures imposed by the Victorian government for players and their teams: "It's like being in prison, but with Wi-Fi."

Earlier, the Australian authorities had denied Novak Djokovic's request for these measures to be relaxed.

"People are free to put forward a list of demands, but the answer is no," said Victorian state head of government

Daniel Andrews

.

"These people have no idea about tennis, it is an absolute disaster. Tennis Australia does not have control of all this, the government has it," said Bautista, thirteenth world classified after his first days of isolation in his hotel room.

The Castellón also admitted that he will have to do a lot of mental work to be able to overcome two weeks of mandatory quarantine, although he clarified that "it will be very hard."

In addition to Bautista, among those affected are other Spaniards such as

Paula Badosa, Carlos Alcaraz and Mario Vilella

, as well as renowned players such as Victoria Azarenka, Angelique Kerber, Kei Nishikori or Sofia Kenin.

The complaints are numerous and varied.

"What I don't understand is why no one told us anything before coming here, because I would have thought twice" (Yulia Putintseva. "Being like this is torture" (Marta Kostyuk). "Weeks and weeks working hard so that I wasted everything for a positive on a plane. It's crazy ... "(Alice Cornet)." We can do some work in the room, but it's not the same. I feel very stiff. I can't imagine being here for two weeks ", Bautista himself completed, in a statement to the Israeli channel Sport 5.

But not everything has been critical.

There have also been other voices that appeal to calm, such as that of Victoria Azarenka.

The Belarusian, a former world number one, urged her fellow tennis players to

"accept and adapt"

to current protocols and health rules.

Craig Tiley, the tournament president now in the spotlight, ruled out even the possibility of

shortening the length of the men's matches

and playing them to the best of three sets instead of five.

"At the end of the day, we are facing a Grand Slam. Today, men will play better in five sets while women will do better in three, that is the plan," he explained in an interview with the Australian channel Nine Network.

The arrival of players and their teams, as well as members who will work in different areas during the tournament, has meant a total of six new cases of covid-19 for the city of Melbourne, which was able to not register

any new cases at the end October

after undergoing a strict quarantine with a curfew that lasted for 112 days, according to EFE.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

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  • Australia

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