Sigi's tips: tennis stars in the bubble

Sigi Heinrich

Little by little, drop by drop, so to speak, light is coming into the darkness of a bubble that is located in the middle of New York. In Manhattan, exactly. Where the participants in the US Open are currently located, there has been a lot of rumblings since it became known that the Frenchman Benoit Paire had a positive corona test. He has been in his room ever since. No no. He is basically fine. But he is not allowed to stay outside the room assigned to him and the maids are not allowed to come in to do a spin with the vacuum cleaner. Paire posted pictures. And yes, it looks pretty chaotic, although I can't quite understand that. You can also fold the duvet neatly yourself and have a vacuum cleaner placed in front of the door. And hanging the clothes in the closet isn't a rocket science either. But Paire also wants to provoke because he sees himself as a prisoner.

His colleague Kristina Mladenovic is also letting her anger out in torrents of words. She even speaks of a nightmare. She played cards with Paire. With a face mask, mind you. Now she is one of the contacts of a player who tested positive for Corona and therefore has to accept considerable restrictions. She is only allowed to leave the hotel for training (after her defeat in the second round, she is still playing doubles with the Hungarian Timeo Babos - both won the Australian Open in January). There is always a companion. She is not allowed to use the elevator in the hotel. She has to climb stairs, which should be reasonable for a top athlete, although I don't know which floor she was placed on. I can't be too strict about that. In any case, the following sentence was also said: “If I had known all this, I wouldn’t have started here.” Tennis players are rich individual entrepreneurs I'm almost in tears. She received $100.000 in prize money as the loser of the second round and, as things stand, will be able to add a few more dollars in doubles. Like everyone else, she was free not to start. But many or even most of those who got involved in this difficult situation initially saw it in a more relaxed manner. True to the motto: It won't be that bad. Of course, the tennis players, who are all sole proprietors, earned nothing due to the cancellation of many tournaments after the lockdown. Meanwhile, the costs for the trainer and the masseurs continued. However, it is also the case that the bank accounts of the tennis elite are full to the brim. Even someone who has never won a major tournament is, after a few years, a cheap millionaire living in the concrete desert of Monte Carlo. The view of the Mediterranean is not the reason for the residence in the dwarf state. More likely, and definitely a tax advantage, which is of course only possible if you can afford an extremely expensive apartment. The bubble swallows life The members of the noble tennis elite are now complaining at the highest level. Some feel for the first time in their lives that they will no longer receive special treatment and that the restrictions that we have all experienced firsthand due to the pandemic are also affecting their lives. The people in Italy have already gone through everything that the players at the US Open are currently experiencing in New York. The big difference: Many people also lost a lot of money. I don't want to play the moralizer here. That's far from my mind. But a little more humility would definitely suit the tennis stars, enriched perhaps with a few truths about real life, which is also the case at the moment Bladder is swallowed.

Football

Italy

International leagues

International

Winter sports

Tennis

Other sports

Motorsport

Cycling

Watersports

Events

Favorites

Sigi's tips: tennis stars in the bubble

Suggestions

Comments (0)