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Some U.S. Open Players Put Under Tighter Protocols After Positive Test

Paire dropped out of the U.S. Open after testing positive for COVID-19 on the eve of the tourneyGETTY IMAGES

The terms "bubble in the bubble" and "fake bubble" were introduced to the tennis lexicon as seven players were allowed to stay in the U.S. Open "under additional restrictions on their movement and subjected to daily COVID-19 testing after coming in contact with Benoit Paire, the Frenchman dropped from the U.S. Open after testing positive," according to a source cited by Howard Fendrich of the AP. The players "were not identified," but three players from France "acknowledged their involvement" -- Kristina Mladenovic, Adrian Mannarino and Edouard Roger-Vasselin. Mladenovic said, "I am basically in a new 'bubble in the bubble,' so there’s not very much I'm allowed to do, which makes it tough for me to compete and mentally be kind of fresh and ready." Asked to describe what she can and cannot do, Mladenovic said, "I'm allowed to play my match. Literally, not allowed to do anything else." Mannarino said that he has been "forced to take the stairs to his seventh-floor hotel room to avoid contact with other players." U.S. Open Tournament Dir Stacey Allaster said that the players in contact with Paire "now must be tested daily for COVID-19, instead of every four days" (AP, 9/1). Allaster: "We anticipated that we would have some positive tests. We’re blessed that it’s only two -- two too many. The two individuals that did have positive tests have been well looked after." She added everyone "has done a fantastic job” in adhering to the protocols and “there has been a sense of community from day one and responsibility” (“Tennis Channel Live,” Tennis Channel, 8/31). 

RESTRICTIONS DETAILED: In N.Y., Christopher Clarey reports players potentially exposed to coronavirus who sign a new document requiring them to submit to daily COVID-19 tests are "required to stay in their hotel rooms unless traveling to the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, and they no longer have access to common areas." No visitors are "permitted in their rooms." At the tennis center, access to locker rooms and dining areas is "prohibited, and the players who sign the agreement must use separate fitness, training and warm-up areas -- and only by appointment." They "will still have access to their designated practice court or match court." Allaster said, "As soon as a positive test happens, the infected person is immediately isolated. And then the discussion is around who have they been with, what setting, for how long, wearing a mask or not a mask, what distance? And our doctors gathered that information quickly" (N.Y. TIMES, 9/1). Mladenovic said of her restrictions, "I still have to find a way and discuss with the USTA how we can organize things in order for me to be at least competitive and have equipment to keep working" (N.Y. POST, 9/1).

HARD TO IMAGINE: In N.Y., Matthew Futterman writes to be there for the start of the U.S. Open "was to experience something nearly impossible to envision." As Angelique Kerber and Ajla Tomljanovic got underway at a "big, nearly empty" Louis Armstrong Stadium, the "loudest sounds were the screeching trains from the Long Island Rail Road yard just beyond the tennis center's walls, and of course the planes flying low out of nearby La Guardia Airport." Players "marched onto their courts after an announcer introduced them over the public address system with brief highlights of their careers, even though no one was really there who didn't know the information already." Then came some "brief piped-in crowd noise." Big screens that surround the court at Arthur Ashe Stadium "showed a grid view of fans cheering remotely in small boxes, looking a bit like they were being held hostage and told to cheer" (N.Y. TIMES, 9/1). In N.Y., Stefan Bondy writes the first day of the U.S. Open was, to "put it mildly, a bit different." Without fans, the grounds -- "normally flooded with people -- carried the look and feel of a hotel resort in its down season, or a college campus in July" (N.Y. DAILY NEWS, 9/1). NBC’s Willie Geist said the Open is a “welcome sight here in New York City, even without the fans." Geist: "We’re still getting used to these major sporting events that are usually teeming with fans to just being played in empty stadiums” (“Today,” NBC, 9/1).

UNLIKE ANY OTHER: TENNIS.com's Ed McGrogan wrote it is "only when you experience how small this US Open is, compared to any one that preceded it, that you realize the true size of this facility, along with how much is missing inside it." Experiences, commerce and energy "have all been left behind, replaced by a vast feeling of emptiness." McGrogan: "Wherever you turned on this disorienting day, it was clear: this nondescript US Open was unlike any other." There were "other signs of US Open's new abnormal." A "skyward glance on this flawless, late-August day saw airplanes ascending from LaGuardia, something the tournament proudly clamps down on in ordinary time" (TENNIS.com, 8/31).

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