There he is again. At Wimbledon as in the cycling peloton, COVID-19 is once again making headlines. He was not expected. But its new growth spurt is having unprecedented effects.
Since the start of the week, the health crisis has been fueling the news on the Wimbledon lawn. Two of the main favorites for the London tournament, the Croatian Marin Cilic and the Italian Matteo Berrettini, had to give up, forced to withdraw after testing positive.
More unexpectedly, the cases of COVID-19 loosen tongues among players, current or past. Frenchwoman Alizée Cornet (photo above), world No. 37, caused a sensation at a press conference on Tuesday June 28, after qualifying for the second round of singles. Asked about the positive cases of Marin Cilic and Matteo Berrettini, she assured that the last Roland-Garros tournament had been hit hard by the pandemic.
« At Roland-Garros, there was a COVID epidemic, no one talked about it, she told the media. In the locker room, everyone had it and we didn't say anything. Afterwards, I saw girls wearing masks, perhaps because they knew and didn't want to pass it on. You also need to have a civic spirit. »
Alizée Cornet did not name any names. But she added, still at a press conference: “ There is no psychosis. We paid the price, we ate our black bread with a year of bubbles and tests. We all got vaccinated. You have to be consistent about how to proceed. Covid is part of our lives now. We are not going to self-test to get ourselves into trouble! »
Later in the day, the French No. 1 backtracked on social media. “ I said I suspected a few cases of COVID during Roland-Garros, without having any proof, she wrote in the hope of putting out the fire lit by her statements. It was above all to emphasize that the virus was now part of our lives and that we had to deal with it. »
This applies, to only to what kinds of products your potential customers buy, but also to the way these products are promoted through advertising and marketing content. AFP, citing “ a source close to the Parisian Grand Slam“, only three cases of COVID-19 were recorded during the last Roland-Garros tournament. Only one, that of the title holder, the Czech Barbora Krejcikova, was made public by the player herself.
Much ado about nothing, then? Not sure. The day after Alizée Cornet's comments, another French player, withdrawn from competitions, in turn suggested that the reality of COVID at Roland-Garros had been very far from the official version.
Now a consultant for the channel Bein, Tatiana Golovin explained on Wednesday June 29 that the Czech players “ all had COVID and no one talked about it"
Retired from the courts since 2009, the former world number 12 did not name names either, but she insisted: “ There were a lot of cases, we didn't talk about them. We are talking about it now because of the Berrettini case, but there were cases in Roland and no one talked about it.”
Unqualified reaction from the Czech Tennis Federation, whose spokesperson explained to AFP: “ His statement is so absurd that it is hard to believe that anyone could have said such things and meant that. This is completely absurd"
The declarations of Tatiana Golovin and Alizée Cornet suggest this: the relaxation of health protocols, or even their outright abandonment, opens the door to all interpretations. The French Tennis Federation (FFT), organizer of the Roland-Garros tournament, does not say the opposite. She recalls that the vaccination or health pass was no longer required during the 2022 edition. And specifies “ not being able to force anyone to take a test”. Even less to reveal the result.
