French player Alizé Cornet, who considers the Roland-Garros health protocol too excessive, says she fears the false positive. She no longer sleeps at night.
As one might logically expect after the disastrous example given by the US Open and New York City, the health protocol linked to Covid-19 generates a lot of anxiety among tennis players who seek to qualify – or who already are – in the big table at Roland Garros this week.
Out in the round of 16 in Strasbourg, the French Alizé Cornet took over the management of Roland-Garros in the wake, fear in the stomach. He is greatly concerned about submitting to Covid tests and their uncertain or even very random results. “This is something that anguishes me to the highest point and I hardly slept all night,” she said on Tuesday.
Cornet: “I find that excessive”
The specter of the false positive lurks over the Parisian fortnight. And he has already had the skin of Bosnian Damir Dzumhur, disqualified for having been in contact with his trainer, who had contracted the disease earlier in the year, this summer. Petar Popovic’s body certainly retained residual traces of the coronavirus. But players were warned, only PCR tests count in the established protocol.
Doctor Bernard Montalvan, in charge of the sanitary protocol for Roland-Garros, explained this, not failing to tackle the American management observed at the US Open. “To do the tests in the United States, you take a swab, you barely put it in your nose,” he said. But we push it in a lot more because our experts say that when you just put it in the nose is useless, you never find anything, you might as well not do it … “
An anxiety-provoking climate for the players
This outing had the gift of annoying Alizé Cornet. “I do not understand how opinions can be so different. People have tested positive in New York, it must be useful, right? We did it ourselves under the supervision of a doctor, but I can tell you that we didn’t put it in the nose a little, it wasn’t very pleasant either. In any case, if it was validated, I don’t think that the United States is doing anything what at that level. “
Either way, players engaged in the tournament are forced to stay in their rooms while awaiting the outcome of their first test. Suspended on the results, it is difficult for them to appreciate the first hours on site, the uncertainty adding stress in this already very anxiety-provoking climate. Some take their troubles patiently, others find it much more difficult to manage this ordeal nervously. This is the case of the French Alizé Cornet, who fears the next few hours.
“I have had feedback from players who have been stuck in their room for almost 30 hours, I find that too excessive, she said. I have the impression that everything is complicated, but at the same time, we is all a little helpless in the face of this situation. It freaks me out, it’s crazy! I live the situation really badly, more and more because of that. I tell myself that it could just be bad luck , after that we can also really be positive. But it’s an anxiety-provoking climate for the players. ”
