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      Margaret Court to Get a Top Australian Honor, Drawing Outrage

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyTop Honor for a Tennis Player With Intolerant Views Draws OutrageMargaret Court, an Australian record breaker known for her homophobic comments, is set to receive one of the nation’s highest public service awards.Margaret Court at the Australian Open last year, during a ceremony marking 50 years since she won the Grand Slam.Credit…Asanka Brendon Ratnayake for The New York TimesJan. 22, 2021Updated 7:03 a.m. ETMELBOURNE, Australia — Australia has conferred one of its highest civilian honors upon former prime ministers, elite athletes, philanthropists, actors and academics for “the highest degree in service to Australia or humanity at large.”But when news broke on Friday that the public service award would be handed next week to the tennis legend Margaret Court, whose sporting legacy has been marred by her vocal homophobia and opposition to same-sex marriage, it sparked outrage in many corners of the country.Condemnation poured out from Australia’s political opposition, with Daniel Andrews, the premier of the state of Victoria and a member of the Labor Party, asking at a news conference why her views, “which are disgraceful, hurtful and cost lives, should be honored.”Nick McKim, leader of the progressive Greens party, said in an email, “Margaret Court has spent more of her life campaigning against marriage equality than she ever spent on the tennis courts.” He added that the award was “a disgraceful insult to everyone Margaret Court has harmed by voicing support for apartheid and her decades-long campaign against L.G.B.T.I.Q.+ rights.”Ms. Court did not immediately respond to a phone call seeking comment. She told a local TV station that she had “never had anyone out in the community come to me and say, ‘Well we don’t like you,’ ‘we don’t like your beliefs’ or anything else. I’ve had thousands come up to me and tap me on the shoulder and say, ‘Thank you.’”Asked about Mr. Andrews’s comments, she said, “Well, I’ll call him blessed.”Ms. Court is scheduled to be awarded the Companion of the Order of Australia on Tuesday, Australia Day, for her service as a tennis player and as a mentor to young athletes. The honor falls under the Order of Australia, which confers public recognition for “outstanding achievement and service.”Nominations are made by an independent council and approved by the governor general. Hundreds of Australians receive the Order of Australia every year, and it has four tiers. The Companion award is the highest tier, and it is bestowed on only a handful of people each year. In 2020, just five people received it.Ms. Court, 78, was named an Officer of the Order of Australia — the second-highest tier — in 2007 for her unparalleled achievements in tennis.As Australia’s most successful female tennis player, she has 64 majors titles across singles, doubles and mixed doubles categories. She is a 24-time Grand Slam singles winner, a record that no male or female player has been able to beat. Serena Williams is next in line, one Grand Slam title away.Since retiring, Ms. Court’s legacy has been increasingly overshadowed by her intolerant views, and she has alienated many in the tennis world. In 1991, she said that lesbianism had ruined women’s tennis. A Pentecostal minister, she has vocally opposed same-sex marriage, compared L.G.B.T.Q. education to the work of the devil and denounced transgender athletes.There are ongoing calls to strip Ms. Court’s name from Melbourne Park’s second-biggest stadium, which was named after her in 2003 and is one of the sites of the Australian Open, set to begin next month. Referring to the annual eruptions of anger surrounding Ms. Court, Mr. Andrews, the premier of Victoria, said, “Do we really have to do this every single summer?”Tennis Australia, the country’s governing body for the sport, has resisted pressure to rename the stadium while seeking to distance itself from Ms. Court. Last year, when it recognized the 50th anniversary of her 1970 Grand Slam, it put out a disclaimer: “Tennis Australia does not agree with Court’s personal views, which have demeaned and hurt many in our community over a number of years.”Prime Minister Scott Morrison, when asked about the new award at a news conference on Friday, said he could not comment, given that the recipients had not been publicly announced. (The news about Ms. Court has been circulating online.) He added that they had been chosen via an “independent set of processes” and that the system “recognizes Australians from right across the full spectrum of achievement in this country.”Last year, the Order of Australia awards were overshadowed by controversy around one recipient, Bettina Arndt, a vocal campaigner against what she describes as the “demonization of men in our society.” Ms. Arndt was widely condemned for praising a police officer for “keeping an open mind” about whether a man accused of murdering his wife and children had been “driven too far.”Following that public backlash, the Council for the Order of Australia released a statement noting that its recommendations “are not an endorsement of the political, religious or social views of recipients, nor is conferral of an honor an endorsement of the personally held beliefs of recipients.”It added, “In a system that recognizes hundreds of people each year, it is inevitable that each list will include some people who others believe should not be recognized.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Rash of Coronavirus Cases Poses Early Challenge for the Australian Open

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesVaccine InformationF.A.Q.TimelineAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyRash of Coronavirus Cases Poses Early Challenge for the Australian OpenWith several positive tests among people arriving from abroad, and a strict quarantine, the Australian Open is not going the way organizers expected it would.Australian Open officials have been criticized for tough measures after a rash of virus cases.Credit…Mike Owen/Getty ImagesJan. 18, 2021, 4:44 p.m. ETMELBOURNE, Australia — It was late December, and Craig Tiley was feeling good. After months of negotiations with government officials and the world’s top tennis players, Tiley, the head of Tennis Australia, finally had the green light to stage the Australian Open in the middle of the pandemic.Health officials and government leaders had come around to the idea of more than a thousand people arriving from overseas, including hundreds of players who would enjoy privileges during their 14-day quarantine period that Australian citizens could not. And the players had agreed to spend virtually their entire day in their hotel rooms for two weeks and to limit their on-court practice time to just two hours each day.“The players are being great,” Tiley said then of the deal for a limited quarantine period. “They realized if they didn’t want to do it, there would be no Australian Open, no lead-in events and no chance at $83 million in prize money.”A month later, Tiley, a native of South Africa and a former college coach in the United States, is at the center of mounting anger from every side after six people on three chartered flights tested positive for the coronavirus upon their arrival in Melbourne.The positive tests have rankled citizens, some of whom complained that Tennis Australia was putting residents at risk to placate millionaire tennis players. The chief health officer for the state of Victoria took action, ordering everyone on the chartered planes, including 72 players who were supposed to be able to practice and spend time in the gym at the tennis center, to stay in their hotel rooms for 14 days, even though none of the players had tested positive.Then came a report that the top-ranked men’s player, Novak Djokovic, the leader of a nascent players’ association, issued a series of demands, including reducing the isolation period for players who continued to test negative and moving as many players as possible to private homes with a tennis court to facilitate training. Health officials quickly rejected them.“We’ve been knocked around because of the flights and the challenges,” Tiley said Monday afternoon during a teleconference with some of the people in quarantine. “I have not had any place I can hide.”In a matter of days, Tiley has gone from one of the most visible cheerleaders for Australian sports to its leading punching bag, while his organization’s signature tournament has transformed from a potential celebration in the rare corner of the world where the virus has been kept under control to yet another symbol of virus uncertainty.Craig Tiley, the tournament director, has defended the quarantines that are rankling the players. Credit…Michael Dodge/EPA, via ShutterstockIn the past 48 hours, government officials, including members of parliament and the agriculture minister, David Littleproud, went on television and attacked the decision to prioritize tennis over what they believed were more essential needs, such as bringing in seasonal workers, easing state border restrictions or allowing some 40,000 Australians to return from overseas. They cannot, in part, because of strict limits on daily international arrivals.The limits remain even though Australia long ago ended one of the world’s strictest virus-related lockdowns. In Melbourne, the police enforced a nearly four-month assault on the virus. During that time, schools and businesses were closed and residents were allowed outside for just one hour (and later two) each day, either to exercise or to go to the grocery store or the pharmacy. They also had to remain within three miles of home unless they had a permit.The Coronavirus Outbreak More

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      With Positive Tests, the Rules Change for Some Players in Australia

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesVaccine InformationF.A.Q.TimelineAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyWith Positive Tests, the Rules Change for Some Players in AustraliaAfter some passengers on charter flights tested positive for the coronavirus, 47 players will not be allowed to practice for two weeks.Players, coaches and officials arriving at a hotel in Melbourne where they will be required to spend most of their time before the start of the Australian Open.Credit…William West/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMatthew Futterman and Jan. 16, 2021MELBOURNE, Australia — Organizers of the Australian Open faced a rebellion from players after passengers on two charter flights bringing them to Melbourne tested positive for the coronavirus, prompting orders for everyone aboard to go into quarantine for two weeks.The flights carried 47 players — including several top competitors who had just played the first event of the women’s tour last week in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates — as well as some journalists, coaches and others.Passengers were asked to have negative test results for the virus within 72 hours of the flights’ departures from Los Angeles and Abu Dhabi. They were tested again after landing in Melbourne, and four people on the flights were found to have the virus as of Sunday afternoon, prompting health officials in the Australian state of Victoria to order that all passengers remain in their hotel rooms for 14 days.For the players on the flights, that means stricter restrictions than they had planned on before the Australian Open, the first major tennis tournament of 2021, which is scheduled to begin Feb. 8.Entrants in the tournament agreed to stay in their rooms for 19 hours a day and were allowed five hours daily at the tennis center to practice, train and eat.Those rules got even tighter Saturday for the 47 players on the two charter flights, who were told they could not leave their hotel rooms at all.Tennis officials appealed for more leniency for players who repeatedly test negative in their first days in Australia, but government officials declined to soften the rules. Players and tennis officials were not aware when they moved ahead with plans to stage the tournament that the government might impose such restrictions.“We are communicating with everyone on this flight, and particularly the playing group whose conditions have now changed, to ensure their needs are being catered to as much as possible, and that they are fully appraised of the situation,” said Craig Tiley, the chief executive of Tennis Australia, which is organizing the tournament.Tiley held a series of difficult videoconferencing sessions with players to explain the changes.In a livestream on Instagram on Saturday night, Marta Kostyuk of Ukraine told her fellow player Paula Badosa of Spain that she had been blindsided by the ruling and would have to compete on an uneven playing field.“It’s about the idea of staying in a room for two weeks and being able to compete,” said Kostyuk, who could not remember the last time she did not pick up a racket for two weeks. “We have to stay in quarantine, but we have to fulfill expectations.”The Coronavirus Outbreak More

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      Australian Open Is Postponed Because of the Coronavirus Pandemic

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesThe Latest Vaccine InformationU.S. Deaths Surpass 300,000F.A.Q.AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyAustralian Open Is Postponed Because of the Coronavirus PandemicWith infections surging in other parts of the world, the first Grand Slam tennis event of 2021 has been delayed by three weeks, according to a schedule released by the men’s tour.Dominic Thiem, left, and Novak Djokovic in the 2020 Australian Open men’s final.Credit…Scott Barbour/EPA, via ShutterstockPublished More