The Australian Open is scheduled to start on February 8 and already the world's #1 player, Novak Djokovic, is stirring up controversy. According to various news reports, he has demanded that tournament officials relax COVID-19 quarantine restrictions for players. This despite that fact that 72 players have been forced to quarantine for 14 days because of coronavirus cases on 3 flights into the country.
Photo Credit: Christopher Johnson (globalite), CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Novak_Djokovic_at_the_2011_Australian_Open4.jpg
Nick Kyrgios, no stranger to controversy himself, called Djokovic a "tool" and also criticized the girlfriend of Australian player Bernard Tomic after she allegedly complained of hotel food and having to wash her hair by herself.
To be fair, some of the restrictions caught many players by surprise, including the requirement that anyone on an airplane with someone who tested positive would have to stay in their hotel room for 14 days. On the flip side, though, are 37,000 Australians who have been outside of their country for various reasons but are not allowed to return home.
COVID-19 and Djokovic are no strangers. He arranged the ill-fated Adria tour last year in the middle of the pandemic, was seen with other players ignoring social distancing requirements, and eventually caught COVID-19 himself, along with several other players and associated personnel.
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