Rafa Nadal feels tennis players are privileged to be able to compete at the Australian Open during the COVID-19 pandemic and urged fellow participants to have a wider perspective of the strict health measures in the country.
About 1,200 participants were allowed to fly to Australia for the summer of tennis as thousands of its citizens are unable to return home due to travel restrictions.
Players are serving 14 days of isolation during which they are allowed five hours outside their rooms each day to train for the year’s first Grand Slam, which has been delayed by three weeks and will be played from Feb. 8-21.
But 72 players have been confined to their rooms after passengers on the charter flights that carried them to Australia tested positive to the virus.
Nadal, along with top players like Novak Djokovic and Serena Williams, is isolating in Adelaide and said he felt “very sorry” for those in hard isolation.
“But when we came here we knew that the measures were going to be strict because we knew that the country is doing great with the pandemic,”
