It turned into a week of woe for South African doubles ace Raven Klaasen and his scheduled Australian Open partner - but with hopes of a speedy reunion between the two on the cards.
The arranged pairing for the current elite tournament at Melbourne Park between Klaasen and New Zealand-born, Japanese-based, Ben McLachlan, a potential seed at the Grand Slam event, was figuratively detonated by the 38-year-old South African failing to secure entry into Australia from Cape Town because of a positive coronavirus test.
Instead, in a late pairing with his regular South African Davis Cup partner, Ruan Roelofse, the internationally grounded Klaasen entered last week's lowest tier ATP Challenger tournament in Potchefstroom, in which they were seeded number one and were expected to win at a canter in view of their vastly superior rankings in comparison with the rest of the field.
Instead, Klaasen and Roelofse suffered a down-to-earth defeat in the semi-finals in Potchefstroom, going down in straight sets, 6-3 6-4, to the Canadian pairing of Peter Polansky and Brayden Schnur.
Meantime, simultaneously at the Australian Open, the partnerless McLachlan managed to secure a last-minute replacement partner in Indian Rohan Bopanna - only to suffer a jarring 6-4, 7-6 (7/0) first-round defeat against the little-known South Korean pairing of Nam Ji-sung and Min-Kyu Song.
Klaasen, who is currently ranked 18th in the world, but has at one time elevated his position to as high as seventh, and McLachlan had decided to pursue a promising partnership in 2021 after joining up towards the end of last year in Germany and winning the doubles at the first attempt at the ATP tournament in Cologne..
Undoubtedly coming unstuck because of the dreaded coronavirus pandemic, has emerged a bitter blow to both Klaasen and McLachlan.
'"But we expect this will only be a temporary break in the partnership,"' said an associate of Klaasen, with the coronavirus bogey no longer standing in the way.