Pop! US Open bubble bursts

Frenchman Benoit Paire has tested positive to coronavirus

Any positives, mate?

That’s the guts of the conversation after some cross-eyed, knock-kneed player has lost on the ATP Tour. Thanks for coming, tell your story walking, shut the door on your way out … but before you go, you useless and dejected old thing, any positives?

Benoit Paire played last week in the Cincinnati Masters’ bubble, which was such a big bubble that it wasn’t even in Cincinnati, but in New York City, where everyone was bubbling up until this week’s US Open.

The bubbles were, and are, two hotels at Long Island that allow short bus trips to Flushing Meadows. Paire, called Benny Pear by sozzled late-night fans at the Australian Open every year, entered the bubble last Tuesday. The world No 22 succumbed 6-0 1-0 to Borna Coric in the first round in Cincinnati, which was really in New York. It was a match so bad it beggared belief. Benny Pear retired because he felt crook. Stomach aches. Any positives, mate? Not until he got the results of his latest COVID-19 test, which was the most high-profile positive test since the party people in Europe, led by Novak Djokovic and Grigor Dimitrov, were found to have the virus in their veins.

Now, Benny Pear, a mercurial player who did some A-grade racquet-smashing at this year’s ATP Cup in Australia, is also a sociable sort of soul. His coach, Morgan Bourbon, is appropriately named. If there’s mingling to be done on tour, Paire boogies on over. The 31-year would have been mixing with other players in the bubble’s communal areas.

The whole idea of the bubble is to keep the virus out. Now it’s in? L’horreur! there’s never been a dangerous floater in a draw like this one.

Benny Pear’s positive test came to the absolute mortification of the USTA on the eve of the US Open. It’s their nightmare come true, potentially throwing the men’s draw, and the tournament itself, into chaos. The sound of the bubble bursting.

Benoit Paire smashes his racquet during the ATP Cup tournament in Brisbane in January

Benny Pear was not named by the USTA because of privacy requirements. It merely confirmed “a player” had tested positive. Secrecy was impossible: when Paire’s name was removed from the draw, you were not required to be Albert Costa, let alone Albert Einstein, to know whom the virus had hit.

Paire was required to isolate for 10 days. That was a problem: his opening-round match against Poland’s Kamil Majchrzak was two days away. Spain’s Marcel Granollers found a positive in it all, replacing Benny Pear in the field. And then everyone in Paire’s Long Island bubble, and the other bubble, and everyone who played last week’s Cincinnati event in New York, tried to remember who had been around him.

The biggest problem for the USTA: any of Benny Pear’s contacts would be forced to isolate for 14 days. Which would wipe them out of the draw, too. And ditto for the contacts of Benny Pear’s contacts? And their contacts? There might be no one left, apart from the mega-rich superstars, like Novak Djokovic and Serena Williams, who have paid for their own rental properties and security measures designed to create their own private bubbles.

The shadow of coronavirus hangs over this year’s US Open in New York City

For starters, Paire’s French comrades Richard Gasquet, Gregoire Barrere, Edouard Roger-Vasselin and Adrian Mannarino were told to go to their hotel rooms and stay there. No practice sessions for them. Whom had they been in contact with? Whom had those people been in contact with? At the very least, Benny Pear had been to Flushing Meadows. Who else had been to Flushing Meadows? Every player in the US Open!

Nightmare. Frenchwoman Caroline Garcia said of Paire’s infection: “I just heard the news. I haven’t talked to him about it but we know it was one of the risks – if you test positive or if one of your team members tests positive, it’s one of the chances you’ll be out of the tournament. I think we all agreed that walking into the bubble it would be a possibility. Of course, it’s very disappointing. But (this) competition, it’s a little bit different. Anything can happen. It was one of the possibilities. I am happy, I feel good. With a case like this coming out, you realise all the rules, if anything, are very strict. You realise maybe it was good for us in the end.”

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French newspaper, L’Equipe wrote: “All the tests he had taken (initially) had been negative. He was placed in isolation at the hotel with his coach, Morgan Bourbon. The question now arises (about) who has been in contact with Paire in the bubble.” Great Britain’s Johanna Konta said it was “shocking and worrisome” for the bubble to have burst.

Benny Pear could simply be replaced in the draw because it’s the first round. Once the tournament begins, infected players will have to forfeit. What if there’s a positive test before a final? What if it’s both finalists? One of the European party people, No 2 seed Dominic Thiem, said: “There’s so many people involved in this tournament, the possibility that somebody is going to be positive is pretty high. I just wish all the best to Benoit. Hopefully nobody else is positive, as well. That’s the most important thing. I think there is no safer place in the world right now than here.

“Maybe you can lock yourself somewhere in a cave or something – I don’t know, in the middle of the sea. Otherwise, it’s super safe here. We are in a bubble.”

Pop!