By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Friday April 16, 2021
Victoria Azarenka will skip next week’s Porsche Tennis Grand Prix in order to receive her coronavirus vaccination. The 31-year-old World No.15 announced the news on Twitter.
Azarenka joins a growing number of players that have demonstrated support for vaccines of late. Simona Halep was one of the first to receive her vaccination, and Serbia’s Dusan Lajovic and Filip Krajinovic have also shown support. Great Britain’s Dan Evans said this week that he was very eager to receive his jab.
“I can't talk on anyone else's behalf,” he told reporters. “But it's definitely in mind I'm very eager to get vaccinated, if I can. It would be heartbreaking if I tested positive for Wimbledon. It's very important to stick to the protocols in place. If some people are being blasé, then it ruins it for everybody else because if one person tests positive, this virus, it can go round very quickly. So seeing scenes in England yesterday, I won't be socializing any time soon.”
The WTA Tour even helped their players get involved last week in Charleston. In cooperation with the Volvo Car Open and Plantation Pharmacy, a local drugstore, the tour secured single dose, Johnson & Johnson Janssen COVID-19 vaccinations for their entrants. Anastasia Potapova, Alla Kudrayavsteva and Oksana Kalishnikova took part.
The Johnson and Johnson shot is temporarily on pause, however, after a rare side effect of blood clotting has been detected in six people that received the vaccine.
But the push to get as many of the willing vaccinated moves forward…