World No.12 Belinda Bencic is calling on the organizers of the Australian Open to make the situation fair for the players who are in isolation, after several players were forced to quarantine on arrival in Melbourne.
The Swiss star is one of the 72 players and coaches who have to stay in their rooms after some players on their chartered flights to Australia tested positive for the coronavirus. Although she and numerous others tested negative, they have to spend 14 days in their hotel rooms, while other players who arrived on different flights can leave their hotels to practice for the first Grand Slam of the Season.
"Now I feel more positive about it and I'm trying to do the most I can do to get out of quarantine," Bencic told reporters on a video conference call from her room on Friday.
"The priority is to not get injured as that is I feel like the biggest risk. Being in the room for 14 days and then playing a tournament the next day or we have two days in between, it's just really a big risk.
"The tennis level will not be there, but we can just try and do our best."
The 23-year old, who is currently quarantined with her coach and boyfriend, spends most of her time sleeping and is eagerly awaiting the end of her isolation.
"I'm trying to play tennis," Bencic lamented. "The main priority is to make it as equal as possible for all the players competing because of course, in this weird situation it's far from equal."
"Many players have a much bigger advantage. It's not like there's only one or two players in quarantine but there's 72."
Growing up in a household where soccer was king, my earliest memories are filled with chants from packed stadiums and the rhythm of a ball being passed across neighborhood streets. But somewhere along the way, the quiet elegance and raw emotion of tennis pulled me in. What began as a curiosity became a lifelong passion; not just for the sport itself, but for the stories it tells: of grit, of heartbreak, of improbable comebacks and human resilience.
As a tennis writer, I bring the observational lens of someone who didn’t grow up in the sport, but fell in love with it as an outsider; a perspective that lets me see both its technical beauty and its emotional depth. Over the years working with TennisUpToDate, I’ve had the privilege of reaching more than 3.5 million readers worldwide, with one of my features ranking among the site’s top three articles.
With a background in storytelling and a creative mind always searching for meaning beyond the scoreboard, I aim to craft narratives that go deeper than results and rankings. Whether it’s a rising star breaking through or a veteran fighting off Father Time, I try to capture the heartbeat behind the headlines.
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