Health is a prerequisite for success on the pro tour.
Yet some Top 10 players are apprehensive about being vaccinated for the Coronavirus.
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Despite the fact players served quarantine in Melbourne prior to the Australian Open and travel the world on the global circuit, some have expressed skepticism over taking a shot in the arm.
Aryna Sabalenka says she’s not comfortable getting vaccinated at the moment and doesn’t want her family to do so either.
“So far I don’t really trust it. It’s tough to say, but I don’t really want it mine yet, actually, and I don’t want my family make it,” Sabalenka told the media in Miami. “I don’t know. I will think about this. I mean, if I will have to do it, then of course I have to do it, because our life is a travel life and I think we are the ones who actually should make it. But I will see.
“Because there is the two, and I want to make the one I think is more expensive and the one is not going to your genetic stuff. There is like two different types of vaccine, and, yeah, I have to think about it. I have to speak with my doctors and see which one is better for me.”
The world No. 7 says she doesn’t believe there’s been adequate testing of vaccines.
“But for now, I don’t really trust it. For sure I don’t want my family make it,” Sabalenka said. “If I will have to do it, I will really think twice before I make it…I don’t know. They just make it, I don’t know, in like really quick and there wasn’t enough time to test it and to see, like, what can happen. So I think this is not enough time to make the good one. I don’t know. I mean, maybe it’s not really good to say, but for now I don’t want to make it. We’ll see what happen.”
Four-time Grand Slam champion Naomi Osaka plans to get vaccinated once she’s eligible.
“I mean, I’m planning on getting one,” Osaka said. “For me, I feel like whenever I’m eligible [I’ll get it], I guess.”
World No. 9 Diego Schwartzman said he’s skeptical of vaccinations in general. The Roland Garros semifinalist is reluctant to get vaccinated though he’d like his family to take the shot.
“It’s not a priority for me, because we are having a lot of problems, you know, to get the vaccine in Argentina,” Schwartzman said. “Obviously we are here in America and America have a lot of opportunities with the vaccine for many people, but I’m not thinking to get.
“I mean, if I have the chance in the future, I think I’m going to help my family in the future to get one, but I really don’t love the vaccine, you know, never, never. It’s not a tradition in my family to get any vaccine.”
There is one event that could change the Argentinean’s mind on vaccines—the prospect of representing Argentina in the Tokyo Olympic Games this summer.
“I read a lot of things about Tokyo, no?” Schwartzman said. “Trying to get the vaccine for the athletes. Obviously if the athletes have the chance before going Tokyo, Tokyo get the vaccine correctly in the legal mood, maybe I do it.”
Photo credit: Peter Staples/Miami Open