COVID19 is on the loose at the US Open. Benoit Paire tests positive for the virus, withdraws as French countrymen quarantined.

Just a day before the U.S. Open is scheduled to begin, the 22nd ranked male tennis player in the world has withdrawn from the U.S. Open after testing positive for COVID19.

Photo Credit: si.robi / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)

Benoit Paire, who has been in the USTA's "bubble" for both the recently completed Western & Southern Open and the U.S. Open, was to have begun play on Tuesday.

The USTA announced that a player had tested positive, was asymptomatic, and was withdrawn, but, refused to acknowledge it was Paire. A tournament official later confirmed that it was Paire, but only after saying he was not authorized to publicly announce it

The news that it was Paire was reported by French newspaper L'Equippe. It also reported that his countrymen Richard Gasquet, Adrian Mannarino, Gregoire Barrere, and Edouard Roger Vasselin were asked to self-isolate in their hotel rooms after Paire's positive test. 

Paire was seeded #17 for the Open. He last played at the Western & Southern Open on Aug.22, but, stopped playing due to illness after being down 6-1, 1-0 against Borna Coric.

Coric, you may recall, was one of several players who contracted COVID19 during Novak Djokovic's much criticized Adria Tour event earlier this year. Coric supposedly was asymptomatic.

Paire's positive test is the second one among those in the "bubble" -  the trainer for Argentine player Guido Pella and Bolivia's Hugo Dellien was the other and was the reason why both of those players were dropped from the Western & Southern Open 10 days ago.

These were the only two reported positive test results out of 7000 tests.