Tennis: Australian Open players in quarantine warned not to feed mice

Yulia Putintseva's stay in Australia is not exactly going to plan. Photo / Twitter

Tennis players in quarantine hotels preparing for the Australian Open have been warned not to feed or interact with mice.

Victoria state police minister Lisa Neville "encouraged" players to "minimise interaction" with the mice, the BBC reports.

"As I understand, there may have been some feeding going on," Neville added said yesterday.

"We will keep doing pest control if we need to, but hopefully that pest control work that was done this week will have fixed the problem."

Neville confirmed yesterday three new positive cases of Covid-19 related to the Australia Open had been detected, adding that authorities are "very confident" one of the cases is a tennis player who is shedding the virus and is not infectious.

10 positive cases mean a total of 72 players remain in hard lockdown after being deemed close contacts of those positives on three charter flights into Melbourne from Abu Dhabi, Doha and Los Angeles.

On Sunday, world No. 187 Yulia Putintseva posted a video of a mouse in her hotel room.

"Been trying to change the room for 2 hours already! And no one came to help due to quarantine situation."

She then tagged the WTA, Australian Open and Tennis Australia, adding: "They put me not in the nicest hotel like other players!"

There was plenty of online reaction to Putintseva's horror clip. Tennis commentator Jose Morgado tweeted "Oh my god" and journalist Ben Rothenberg wrote: "You can't go outside, but the mice can go in."

Fellow reporter Reem Abulleil said: "Holy s**t! I never watched Snakes on a Plane but I assume this is the same thing!!!"

French tennis journo Carole Bouchard wrote on Twitter: "Omg. No no no no … I'd be going mad," while British writer George Bellshaw added: "Of all the Australian Open disasters, this has to be the most surprising."

Daily Mail correspondent Mike Dickson channelled his inner reality TV fan by tweeting: "I'm a tennis player, get me out of here."

Even Judy Murray, Andy Murray's mum, joined in.

You need to get hold of this dude @PutintsevaYulia 👇🏼 https://t.co/LgGnIpFLdv pic.twitter.com/2CG35Te3ao

— judy murray (@JudyMurray) January 16, 2021