The challenge of being confined to a Melbourne hotel room does not quite compare to the recent struggles the 2019
US Open champion has endured
Bianca Andreescu was in the middle of describing her sad summer without
Tennis when the doorbell rang. In her hotel room in Melbourne, where she had been locked away in solitude since arriving for the
Australian Open on one of the contaminated flights, there was one big reason for the intrusion. It was time for her daily Covid-19 test. What followed was an interlude reflective to these times: she excused herself, put down her phone and, with the call still running, fielded her 13th cotton bud in 13 days.
While many of her colleagues spent the early days of their detention venting anger on the internet, the Canadian remained under the radar. Her silence was in large part because her coach, Sylvain Bruneau, was one of the positive cases.