French tennis star Benoit Paire has urged the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) to “protect players” after testing positive for COVID-19 once again.
Paire, currently ranked No.46 in the world, is likely to head into the Australian Open with little preparation after being forced into quarantine.
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The 32-year-old is scheduled to participate in the Melbourne ATP 250 lead-in tournament next week, which he will likely have to miss now.
A frustrated Paire took to social media to reveal the mental health toll that quarantine requirements have had on him.
“Hello, my name is Benoit Paire and for the 250th time I am positive for COVID,” he wrote on Instagram.
“Honestly I can’t deal with this COVID s— any more.
“How am I doing? Because of COVID I got a runny nose, but because of all these quarantines spent in a hotel room halfway across the world, I don’t feel good mentally.
“Last year was hard and this year starts exactly the same.”
Paire confirmed he his vaccinated but urged the ATP to look at better ways of taking care of players’ health.
“Just one thing, I’m 100 per cent for the vaccine, but let’s just live as before Covid, otherwise I don’t see the point,” he added.
“It’s secondary, but ATP, how do you protect players in my case?”
Paire in 2020 missed the US Open after testing positive to COVID-19 only days before the start of the tournament.
While earlier this year, Paire was among the 72 players forced to complete a hard two-week hotel quarantine in Melbourne after three chartered flights were found to be infected by COVID-19 prior to the 2021 Australian Open.
Paire’s quarantine stint in Australia earlier this year left him furious at the time.
After a first round Australian Open exit, he unleashed a scathing attack at AO organisers, slamming the event as “s–t” and branding Tennis Australia’s handling of the coronavirus-affected flights as “shameful”.
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