Tennis, Tomic accuses: AusOpen does not swab. And he gets sick

"I'm sure I'll test positive in the next two days, I'll tell you. I'll offer you dinner if I don't test positive within three days."

Bernard Tomic is the classic player as talented as he is prone to outbursts over the top.

An impetuous character, which often got him into trouble.

But the sentences addressed by the 29-year-old Australian (of Croatian origin) to the chair judge Aline Da Rocha Nocinto cannot fall on deaf ears, because beyond the outburst, they cast serious doubts on the anticovid protocol adopted by the first Slam 2022 tournament, starting on Monday on Melbourne's hard courts, struggling with the 'Djokovic case' for days.

    "I can not believe that no one is being checked. They are allowing the players to take the field with quick tests done in the room. No molecular swabs" Tomic irritated, in a break in the qualifying match with the Russian Roman Safiullin, lost in two quicks set. Convinced that he had fallen ill during the meeting, he returned to the hotel from where he posted an update on his state of health on Instagram: "I feel really bad. I just talked to the doctors on site and they asked me to isolate myself. They say that they still can't heal me to avoid contact. " Is it possible that the prevention of infections has the gaps reported by Tomic? In that case, the tournament (with a prize pool of $ 54.2 million) would be at risk from the start.

    While waiting to understand if Djokovic, nine AusOpen already won in his career, will be able to stay in Melbourne or be thrown out as any illegal immigrant, we wonder about the possibility that some player refuses to cross the racket with the n.1 in the world because he is not vaccinated. Question addressed by 'Radio too sport' to Adriano Panatta. Premise: "Honestly, I can't take this story anymore". However, it is an eventuality that finds the former champion skeptical. "In 1973 we boycotted Wimbledon en masse", 81 players, "as a matter of principle - recalled Panatta - A colleague of ours, Nikola Pilic, had been disqualified from his own federation for not wanting to participate in the Davis Cup with Yugoslavia. It looks difficult.The presence in the first round of the Australian Open is worth 70 thousand euros ... If you lose. "Pilic had refused to face New Zealand, choosing the dollars of a doubles tournament, in Montreal, at a time when tennis were very high. more modest than the current ones.

    Meanwhile, tomorrow, at 5.00 Italian time, the composition of the singles, male and female scoreboards will be known.

And Djokovic was still included as seeded # 1 of the former.

At the moment there are 11 Italians already admitted: among the men Matteo Berrettini, Jannik Sinner, Lorenzo Sonego (seeded), Fabio Fognini, Lorenzo Musetti, Gianluca Mager, Stefano Travaglia, Marco Cecchinato and Andreas Seppi.

Among the women Camila Giorgi and Jasmine Paolini.

Lucia Bronzetti, Thomas Fabbiano, Alessandro Giannessi, Flavio Cobolli, Martina Trevisan, Salvatore Caruso and Gian Marco Moroni are still at stake.