Australian Open: After bumpy build-up underneath Covid shadow, ‘Lucky Slam’ underway

Ankita Raina had nearly woken up on Wednesday morning when she heard the fixed buzz of her cell phone. Through a sleepy-gaze, she browsed via the steadily constructing record of incoming messages until she sat in her resort room, wide-eyed.
“The messages were from my coach, Australian Open officials, some players and some of my friends from around here asking me if I was alright and which hotel I was in,” she says. “There was a positive case, and it was something that really shook us all up. It was a way of telling us that not everything is safe just yet.”
A safety official at one of many participant lodges had examined constructive for COVID-19, simply days earlier than the Australian Open was to begin. The Victorian authorities made the choice to place all 507 gamers, their help employees and officers staying at that resort in a day-long strict quarantine till they cleared one other take a look at (which all of them ultimately did). All matches on Thursday have been cancelled, and there was the necessity for Tennis Australia’s CEO to reiterate strongly that the Australian Open will nonetheless be “starting on Monday.”
For years, the Australian Open has been dubbed the ‘Happy Slam’ however the build-up to the yr’s first Grand Slam has been something however. And simply when the gamers had began to benefit from the freedom of the post-quarantine spell, there got here the strict reminder.
“The mood feels a bit different now,” provides Raina, who will play within the ladies’s doubles occasion, turning into solely the fourth Indian lady to play in a Grand Slam principal draw.

Down underneath 🇦🇺☀️💪🧿 @australianopenThanks for the 📸 @IndTennisEach day pic.twitter.com/zX9FbjmoEX
— Ankita Raina (@ankita_champ) February 4, 2021
Rolling again just a few months, when the phrase ‘vaccine’ was nonetheless simply an concept and never a actuality, Tennis Australia had begun the lengthy technique of making an attempt to safe permission from the state authorities to permit the occasion to happen — in pre-pandemic instances, the Australian Open was one of many highlights on the tennis calendar.
Quarantine protocols have been mentioned, schedules have been modified, participant necessities have been thought-about, and it was determined to restrict crowds to 50 per cent capability (30,000 per day). And when issues went easily within the transportation of the 1200-plus gamers, help employees and officers to Melbourne on 15 chartered flights, 4 from the incoming crowd examined constructive upon arrival.
Protocols have been in place to isolate the contaminated, however when 72 gamers on board the contaminated flights have been knowledgeable that they must surrender the posh of the five-hour coaching time per day throughout the quarantine, and as a substitute enter a tough 14-day quarantine, the sensation of being in Australia was seemingly now not ‘happy.’
Players complained that they weren’t knowledgeable, or else they wouldn’t have come (although New Zealand’s doubles specialist Artem Sitak claimed most gamers skipped the assembly when the protocols have been mentioned). The high quality of meals was berated, a mouse appeared to observe Kazakh-player Yulia Putintseva from one resort room to a different, gamers ranted about some getting preferential remedy, and World No 1 Novak Djokovic’s six “demands/recommendations” have been categorically shot down by the Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews.
It was only a handful of gamers who made probably the most noise, but it surely was sufficient to irk the locals. Especially for the reason that arrival of the gamers meant that the 37 thousand odd Australians stranded overseas must wait an additional week earlier than they might journey again residence – the federal government had carried out a weekly journey cap on incoming passengers.
But as January 29 approached, the temper modified. Quarantine ended and gamers have been allowed the liberty that had highlighted their earlier sojourns down underneath. Serena Williams took her daughter to the zoo in Adelaide earlier than she took to the courtroom for an exhibition match in opposition to Naomi Osaka. Kazakh participant Elena Rybakina went to courtroom to apply nicely previous the midnight hour. Raina in the meantime went out to bask in a plate of masala dosa at a neighborhood Indian restaurant.
A number of rescheduled and relocated warm-up tournaments, designed to get gamers used to aggressive matches earlier than the yr’s first main, began to ship a semblance of normalcy in what had been a rocky keep in Australia thus far.
Then the temper was introduced down once more on Wednesday morning.
The masks will likely be as vital a bit of apparatus as a racquet on the Australian Open. And whereas there have been a number of tournaments that have been known as off due to the pandemic – Wimbledon, the Canadian Masters and the Indian Wells occasion that was scheduled initially for March – there’s a component of luck that the Australian Open is even going down.
The Happy Slam is now maybe, the Lucky Slam.