Camila Giorgi is a very successful tennis player, the now 31-year-old from Macerata has earned more than five million dollars in prize money. She won three titles, and in 2021 she had her greatest success by winning the WTA tournament in Montréal, which is one of the big ones on the women’s tour. But Camila Giorgi is also a slightly different tennis player. She is considered a loner, at least you never see her with colleagues. She shows up, trains, she plays, she’s gone.
And then she likes to undress. She’s known for posting photos of herself lounging in lingerie somewhere on Instagram. In Wimbledon, she also made a confession in 2018, because never before had a woman who played tennis professionally said publicly: “I don’t follow tennis, women’s tennis.” She really said that without irony.
But now she’s in the headlines with a completely different, very sensitive topic, her case is even occupying the judiciary in Italy. Is Camila Giorgi a scammer? Did she have a corona vaccination card forged for herself?
Just tennis in your head? Camila Giorgi acted almost flawlessly on Tuesday – only then did she make a number of unforced errors.
(Photo: Manan Vatsyayana/AFP)
Investigators in Italy are now investigating these questions after the arrest of two doctors accused of issuing fake vaccination certificates. Giorgi’s name appeared in the customer file. According to Italian media, doctor Daniela Grillone has already claimed that Giorgi is a patient with her, but has not been vaccinated. If this is true, Giorgi would have nothing to fear about her current presence in Australia. She is currently taking part in the Australian Open in Melbourne.
There are no longer any restrictions on people entering the country, so you don’t have to present proof of vaccination like in the previous year, when, as is well known, the Serb Novak Djokovic experienced a completely different drama in connection with the vaccination issue and was deported as an unvaccinated person. But in the past year, Giorgi had been happily traveling around the world at a time when entry was actually only allowed with proof of vaccination. Did she sneak into participation in Melbourne in spring 2022 or at the US Open in New York in late summer using a forged document? In general, falsifying such a document is a criminal offence.
About her doctor, who was exposed as a fraud, Giorgi says: “She has the difficulties, not me.”
The opportunity to be asked these questions came this Tuesday in Melbourne after Giorgi easily won her first game. She defeated Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova from Russia, who returned after a seven-month injury break (Russian representatives compete in tennis without a flag) 6-0, 6-1 in 55 minutes. Then the Italian came to the press conference – and it was all about her vaccination card.
First question: There are allegations against you in the press. Do you want to reply?
Giorgi: I didn’t understand correctly.
Once again she was asked the same thing. Now she made it clear: Yes, the doctor was being investigated, she had had problems with the law a few times. She would have had all her vaccinations done in different places. “So she’s in trouble. Not me.” So she is very calm. And otherwise she couldn’t be here and play right now.
Four or five questions followed which, intentionally or not, she misunderstood. She kept talking off topic. Her English isn’t the best even though she travels all over the world. Once she said: “I’m not in dangerous.”
“The vaccine was a vaccine”: With every sentence, everything became more confused than before.
But the reporters didn’t give up. The accused doctor testified that she, Giorgi, wanted a fake vaccination certificate from her. Is that true? Now she said she had only been to that doctor once, she had had the other vaccinations done somewhere else. Giorgi could have just said: I got vaccinated here and then there and then there on so-and-so many times. End. But she didn’t say that. She gave no places, no doctors, no dates. Somehow everything became more confused than before.
The finale of the press conference:
Giorgi: I got vaccinated. Thanks.
Moderator: Next question.
Reporter: The vaccine you got was it against Covid?
Giorgi: What do you mean? The vaccine was vaccine.
Reporter: Right, but was it a Covid vaccine?
Giorgi: I already answered the question about the vaccine and it’s good.
Reporter: You said it was a vaccine. I ask if it was a covid vaccine.
Giorgi: It’s a vaccine. If you read things, there is a vaccine.
Reporter: So just Covid, okay.
Giorgi: Thank you.
In the second round, Giorgi meets Anna Karolina Schmiedlova from Slovakia on Thursday. The next press conference is likely to come. Maybe then she’ll know if it was a Covid vaccine or not.