Watson stuck in her hotel room
HEATHER WATSON is hemmed up in a Melbourne hotel room, her Australian Open preparations severely hampered through no fault of her own.
The Guernsey and GB star is one of 47 players already quarantining for two weeks after passengers on their flights out to Victoria where the first Grand Slam starts on 8 February, tested positive for Covid.
All those players affected may now have just one day’s practice before the raft of warm-up events begin at Melbourne Park on 31 January.
Watson, 28, was on a flight from Abu Dhabi that arrived in Melbourne on Friday morning local time.
Soon after, the Guernsey star tweeted ‘one person on the flight I was on from Abu Dhabi tested positive. So now everyone else who was on that flight has a 14-day quarantine where we are NOT allowed out of our rooms.’
In an Instagram post Watson showed herself exercising in her room, supposedly jogging five kilometres.
Two-time champion Victoria Azarenka and 2017 US Open champion Sloane Stephens are also among those affected, while several players inadvertently caught up in the Covid-trap said they might not have gone to the tournament if the rules had been made clear to them.
But, Australian Open organisers have hit back, saying said the rules were clear, and the event would begin as planned on 8 February.
Watson has not spoken out in a critical manner and while she will be among those prohibited to leave their hotel rooms for two weeks, unaffected rivals are allowed five hours of daily practice.
It seems the players affected were on two flights, one arriving from Los Angeles and one from Abu Dhabi.
Just two people, a member of the flight crew and a person in a player’s travelling entourage, tested positive on the Los Angeles flight.
There was one positive test from Watson’s flight and Sylvain Bruneau, coach of 2019 US Open champion Bianca Andreescu, said it was him.
He said he was ‘extremely sorry for the consequences now on everyone’s shoulders’.
Watson’s fellow Brits Johanna Konta, Dan Evans and Cameron Norrie were not on either affected flight, while Andy Murray, who tested positive last week, is understood to be in good health and in a period of self-isolation at home in London.
