Naomi Osaka was one of many players and coaches arriving on a flight from Los Angeles into Melbourne on Tuesday. (Getty Images)
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The players are arriving from all over the world to begin their Australian summer.
And a flight from Los Angeles that hit Melbourne Tuesday was one of the first of close to 20 potential charters to touch down.
Tennis Australia videoed the arrival.
Among those on the Los Angeles flight: Naomi Osaka, Coco Gauff, Shelby Rogers, Mackenzie McDonald, Canadian Rebecca Marino, Laslo Djere, Robert Lindstedt, Tatjana Maria and her family, coach Dante Bottini and many, many more.
Here’s a link to a Getty Images photo gallery that extensively chronicles the arrivals.
There are plenty of medical staff wrapped in PPE and wearing face shields.
It’s all rather reminiscent of last January, although the check-in hangar is much bigger, and there appear to be many more people on the flight than the limited numbers for the 2021 event.
Part of that is the more relaxed rules for who is deemed a close contact on a flight; only those within two rows of a positive test are designated thus. In January, a single positive test on the flight forced every single person on it into the hard 14-day hotel quarantine.
And the isolation rules for close contacts are quite mild – no more than any other arrival, they need only to isolate until a negative test comes back.
Anti-vaxxer Cash among the arrivals
Notably, Aussie Pat Cash – a notorious anti-vaxxer who coaches Qiang Wang – is shown arriving in Melbourne.
Cash has been … out there in his embrace of conspiracy theories and anti-vaccination tropes.
Both he and Wang decided that not covering their nose with the mask was a good idea.
Social distancing is but a concept.
Let’s hope everyone is negative.
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Happy reporting!
Wishing you safe days ahead.
Thanks. Eeesh.