Who is paying off whom at the U.S. Open? Womens #1 doubles team forced to withdraw over COVID19 concerns.

If you ever needed any evidence that something fishy is going on at the U.S.Open, look no further than the recent actions involving French men's players Benoit Paire and Adrian Mannarino and women's players Kristina Mladenovic and Timea Babos, the #1 seeded women's doubles team this year.

Photo Credit: Keith Allison from Hanover, MD, USA / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)

Because Mladenovic had been in contact with her compatriot Benoit Paire, a French men's player who was forced to withdraw before the tournament began after testing positive for COVID19 (he later tested negative), New York health authorities ordered that Mladenovic be quarantined and withdraw from the tournament.

However, their decision came a day after they tried to prevent Mannarino from playing his match against Sascha Zverev for the exact same reason, but ultimately allowed that match to proceed!

Babos, a Hungarian player who was not in contact with Paire and was not ordered to quarantine, has been in tears after her withdrawal, understandably unable to comprehend the logic in the decisions made. She pointed out that Mladenovic had been tested for COVID19 several times last week and all results were negative. 

She complained, "Let's look at the facts: Benoit Paire's positive 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. Kiki (Mladenovic) had had 11 - repeat 11 - negative tests for COVID19. And yet we were locked up. On Friday they went out of their way to ensure that Mannarino could play. He was allowed to play and, the next day, we were not. It is simply injustice! It is incomprehensible! It's not fair."

Valid points. Just who is in charge here? Why one and not the other? And why are they being asked to quarantine when Paire ultimately tested negative for the virus after being re-tested?

There are literally hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars at stake here. Either the rules are the same for everybody or the rules are being made up as the tournament goes along. 

Someone in charge needs to explain what is going on. Ace wonders what the bookies are saying?