Tennis stars make the most of quarantine on social media

While Australia and the rest of the world wonder how the Australian Open could go ahead after a chaotic arrival in Melbourne, tennis stars have been taking to social media to take aim at conditions.Players have taken aim at the food available, the ability to have five hours a day out of quarantine to practice, work out and rehab and some substandard living conditions.
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For some players, the restrictions are even tighter after arriving on flights linked with four positive COVID-19 cases.
But while it has been difficult for tennis stars coming into the country from other nations with varying severity in their restrictions, some players have made the most of it.
Women’s World No. 72 Daria Kasatkina from Russia posted a video on her Tik Tok channel and shared it on Twitter with her and World No. 38 Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova playing a game of quarantine tennis.
The countrywomen appear to be in their own rooms to play out the video, from tying up shoelaces, to diving over their beds to hit a winner.
As expected, the higher ranked Pavlyuchenkova won the match but the fans appreciated the stars taking the lighter approach.
They weren’t the only ones with the likes of Yulia Putintsevo, Pablo Cuevas and Belinda Bencic sharing videos of training quarantine style.
Tennis legend Martina Navratilova said wrote: “Ha!!! Talk about adjusting.” while former world No.1 and two-time US Open champion Tracy Austin wrote: “This is brilliant – thinking ahead! Good thing he is accurate.”
But the frustration has been real from those in and out of quarantine with World No. 3 Naomi Osaka reportedly deleting a photo as she arrived in Adelaide.
Italian tennis journo Luca Fiorino reported the photo has caused a stink with players “not very happy for the unequal treatment in relation to big players in Adelaide”.
It comes as the Australian Open Twitter handle reported that “SA Health has confirmed that there is no one who has an active COVID-19 infection in the entire tennis cohort based in Adelaide. Testing will continue on a daily basis.”
Few tennis stars have received any form of sympathy from an Australian public who has kept the transmission rate relatively low.
French World No. 53 Alize Cornet deleted a tweet last night but continued to Aussie fans who explained the situation.
Another player, Romanian World No. 71 Sorana Cirstea said she wouldn’t have come down to Australia had she realised the conditions.
Other players have been threatened with fines of up to $20,000, a warning from police and even a transfer to a complex care hotel with Victoria Police on the door.
It comes after several instances of players trying to leave their rooms to speak to each other.
“Some of these challenging behaviours include one player who opened his door to try and have a conversation with his training mate down the hallway,” Commissioner for COVID-19 Quarantine Victoria, Emma Cassar said.
“It is very low level, but they are dangerous acts that we cannot tolerate.”
Another example flagged by Ms Cassar was a player who shouted food for others within the hotel – which is allowed – before breaking the rules by opening his door to “praise himself for his great efforts”.