Victoria Azarenka slams Australian Open's quarantine rules calling it 'damaging'

Victoria Azarenka was no fan of the 2021 Australian Open quarantine and with 2022 inching closer Azarenka was asked about the strict rules imposed in Australia. Needless to say, Azarenka was not impressed as she criticized the quarantine saying:

“The quarantine helping? The quarantine experience definitely is not helping in no way. There is no possible way quarantine in any way has helped me. It only was really damaging. There's no other way to put it. It was damaging mentally, the end of it. It was damaging physically the most for me. I've never stopped for two weeks not doing anything. In no way that was helpful.”

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The criticism is somewhat understandable and Azarenka is not wrong in pointing out that a strict quarantine has a negative effect on both physical and mental health. The issue is even more pronounced for tennis players who rarely go without physical activity for a prolonged period of time. Azarenka has not been a very vocal player during the pandemic but she is one of the few who has called for vaccines to become mandatory for everyone.

In her own words, it would help get things to normal quicker which is what everybody wants. However, the Belarussian is not in favour of strict quarantine especially when players arriving in Australia have complied with the vaccination mandate. There is no definite stance on whether players will need to quarantine even with the vaccine, but as you can get infected with the virus despite getting vaccinate it's expected a quarantine mandate will also be enforced.