Early within the second set of her second-round match on Thursday evening, a ball bounced simply previous Ons Jabeur’s attain, and she or he misplaced the purpose, throwing her arms up in exasperation.
On any regular day, Jabeur, the No. 5 seed, would in all probability have reached the ball in time to return it down the road, however she has been enjoying whereas sick.
Jabeur, who reached the U.S. Open last final 12 months, is amongst a number of gamers who’ve needed to deal with an sickness of some kind at this 12 months’s match.
Dominic Thiem of Austria retired within the second set of his second-round match, doubled over on the web with what gave the impression to be a stomach-related difficulty. Emil Ruusuvuori withdrew from the match earlier than his first-round match, citing an unspecified sickness. Tennys Sandgren, who didn’t advance out of the qualifiers, wrote on X, previously often known as Twitter, that he turned ailing after returning house from the match.
“I bought the us open bug,” he stated in a separate post, including, “in a approach nonetheless seems like I’m within the match however at house.”
It’s not simply gamers. The ESPN commentator John McEnroe said on Tuesday that he had examined optimistic for the coronavirus after feeling unwell.
It’s unclear whether or not the entire gamers have the identical sickness, or whether or not their circumstances are related, however one thing has been going across the U.S. Open.
Hubert Hurkacz appeared to battle throughout his second-round match on Thursday, when he was upset by Jack Draper of Britain. Through the match, medical employees got here out to deal with Hurkacz for what didn’t seem like a bodily harm. Across the tennis grounds, sniffles and coughs may be heard, and a few gamers have been toting tissues of their luggage.
The string of diseases comes as a late-summer wave of coronavirus infections has been reported throughout the USA, with indications of an increase in circumstances within the Northeast and within the West.
Diseases are doable at any match, the place gamers are sometimes in shut quarters and share amenities. However with gamers now not required to check for Covid-19, it’s troublesome to find out the reason for the diseases amongst them.
Well being protocols on the U.S. Open have turn into much less stringent since 2020, when spectators weren’t allowed to attend the match and when gamers took to the empty courts in face masks.
When followers have been allowed to return in 2021, they have been required to point out proof of vaccination in opposition to the coronavirus. That requirement has since been dropped, and people attending the U.S. Open this 12 months don’t want to point out proof of vaccination, present a adverse coronavirus take a look at or put on masks.
After prepared her approach — simply barely — to a first-round win, Jabeur stated she had the flu. In her second-round match, she appeared to battle once more, coughing on court docket a number of instances, together with throughout her interview after beating the unseeded Czech participant Linda Noskova in three units.
Jabeur stated later in a information convention on Thursday that she had been sick for a couple of week.
“I’m taking a whole lot of medication,” she stated, including that she “mainly took each medicine” the U.S. Open docs have.
Jabeur stated her abdomen had been “superb,” however she famous that she knew different gamers had been combating abdomen points. She appeared to waver on whether or not she had the flu or one thing else.
“I believe I bought a flu or one thing,” she stated on Thursday evening.
It was unclear whether or not Jabeur, who performs her third-round match on Saturday in opposition to the No. 31 seed Marie Bouzkova of the Czech Republic, had taken a coronavirus take a look at to rule out the potential of an an infection.
“I’m a zombie as a result of I’ve a flu,” she stated.