American John Isner, the 24th seed, has become the latest player to pull out of the 2021 Australian Open, opting to stay at home as the tournament deals with a number of positive cases at the qualifying event in Doha.
Isner made the call after his quarter-final loss to fellow American Sebastian Korda at the Delray Beach Open, citing the extended period away from his young family.
"I'm staying home," he told reporters.
"At this stage of my career and in my life I've always had visions of being able to travel with my family.
"It really was just a situation where I didn't want to be away from my family for that long."
"I'm staying home," says Isner. "At this stage of my career and in my life I've always had visions of being able to travel with my family. ... It really was just a situation where I didn't want to be away from my family for that long."
— Tennis Majors (@Tennis_Majors) January 12, 2021
Isner joins 20-time grand slam champion Roger Federer (knee) and Jo-Wilfred Tsonga (back) in withdrawing from the first grand slam of the year.
As players continue to pull out, Australian Open organisers will be scrambling to ensure that they maintain quarantine controls after two players tested positive for COVID-19 at the qualifying tournament in Doha.
Fourth seed Denis Kudla was removed from the event after testing positive mid-way through his 6-4, 6-3 win over Morocco's Elliot Benchetrit on Monday.
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Benchetrit took to social media after the match, revealing that officials had told him that if he had managed to win the final game of the match, he would've been declared the winner.
"At 5-3, they got the result [of his test]. So if I'd won that game at 5-3 to make it 5-4, I'd have qualified for the second round," Benchetrit said in a video posted on Instagram.
"Now we're waiting to see if I'm considered a close contact or not. And if I am, it's a double whammy because I lost the match, played against a [COVID-19] positive guy and they didn't get the result before the match.
"And on top of that, I'd have to stay a week in the room [under quarantine]."
Australian wildcard Dane Sweeny was set to play Kudla in the second round, with the 19-year-old granted a walkover win into the final round of qualifying.
Along with Kudla, Argentinian Francisco Cerundolo was also forced to withdraw after a positive test following his win over Guillermo Garcia-Lopez.