Bundesliga, Corona: The Bundesliga game planned for Saturday between FC Augsburg and FSV Mainz 05 will be postponed due to the Corona outbreak at Rheinhessen. This was announced by the German Football League on Thursday evening. The encounter will be postponed “because 1. FSV Mainz 05 still does not have the minimum number of players required by the DFL rules of the game due to positive corona findings,” it said. A new game date should be announced as soon as possible. The Mainz game against BVB was canceled last week and postponed to next Wednesday.
2nd Bundesliga, Corona: After a corona outbreak in the team, second division soccer team Hamburger SV submitted an application to the German Football League (DFL) to postpone the home game against FC Erzgebirge Aue scheduled for Saturday. “Unfortunately, we would not be able to play in the current situation and have canceled the training sessions scheduled for today,” said HSV sports director Jonas Boldt on Thursday on the club’s homepage.
Training was canceled in the morning because several players and people close to the team had complained of being unwell. The suspected corona cases have been confirmed according to current tests. “A large part of the squad and the staff has contracted the corona virus,” said the club, without naming the exact number of sick people. The DFL must now decide at short notice whether the game will be canceled.
Fortuna Düsseldorf also submitted the same application to the DFL to move the game on Saturday at SC Paderborn. Fortuna announced this on Thursday. The background is currently 14 confirmed corona cases among Fortuna professionals. In addition, almost the entire coaching staff around head coach Daniel Thioune is affected. This does not allow a game on Saturday (1.30 p.m.), it said.
“Due to the high number of corona-related failures, we are in constant contact with the DFL. We have now applied for the game to be rescheduled,” said sporting director Klaus Allofs. Assistant coach Jan Hoepner led the training with the remaining uninfected professionals on Thursday. The training group was strengthened with seven players from the junior division. Paderborn’s coach Lukas Kwasniok had previously emphasized on Thursday that he was preparing to host the game.
Tennis: Novak Djokovic does not play in the ATP tournaments in Indian Wells and Miami. The former number one in the tennis world rankings justified this decision on Wednesday by saying that the US health authority CDC did not change its rules for entry and that he could not compete in the two events. The Serb had stated in a BBC interview in mid-February that he was still not vaccinated against the corona virus.
He was seeded number two in the Indian Wells top-flight event. Due to the withdrawal, the Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrow is now in the seeding list. The day before, the organizers of the Masters 1000 tournament, where Tommy Haas is tournament director, had announced that they were in contact with Djokovic’s team and that it was unclear whether the Serb could enter the USA. The 34-year-old said he wished the participants in the tournaments in Indian Wells and Miami good luck.
Djokovic was expelled from the country just before the start of the Australian Open earlier this year and was therefore unable to defend his title in Melbourne. The long-time number one in the world had traveled to Australia believing that it had an entry permit. A federal court, however, decided otherwise. Djokovic has played his only tournament this year in Dubai. There, only a negative PCR test was required to participate, but no vaccination against the corona virus.