Novak Djokovic will probably miss the Australian Open. It would be a sad low point for the Serb who got lost once more. And it is absolutely the right decision by the Australian authorities to turn him away.
“It’s shameful,” raged Srdjan Djokovic in the Serbian newspaper “Blic” late on Wednesday evening. “I can’t talk to my son, they portray him as a criminal. I have no words for everything they did to him.” Now his son is not just anyone, but Novak Djokovic, currently the best tennis player in the world, the number one in his sport, decorated with 20 Grand Slam titles, who had just been denied entry to Australia. The Australian Open begins in Melbourne on January 17th.
However, the rejection was not the arbitrariness of villainous border guards, as Djokovic senior claims, but the result of a conscientious corona policy, especially of the responsible state of Victoria, on which Djokovic’s “medical exemption” ricocheted off like otherwise only opposing balls on the fore and aft of the Serbs.
Anything else would have been a mockery of the population
One would like to say even more: Bravo! This is what effective action in the pandemic must look like – especially with consideration for the own population in “Down Under”, which for almost two years has supported partly bone-hard corona measures and lockdown after lockdown. Anything other than a rejection of an inadequate Djokovic application should have mocked its own population and led to sharp protests.
And: If the 34-year-old had obviously been allowed to start in Melbourne unvaccinated with his obscure – and allegedly invalid – special permit, it would have been a slap in the face of all his colleagues who conscientiously meet all requirements and follow rules – and also those whose lawful special permits have been accepted. Ironically, this Djokovic, the well-known health and nutrition fanatic who leaves nothing to chance and always incorporates the latest findings into his fitness plans, keeps getting lost (read more about his aberrations away from the tennis court here). One can only feel sorry for him.
It is an open secret that the “Djoker” is desperate not to be loved by the fans despite all his sporting feats, like Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, his two greatest rivals. Now he has answered the “why” himself again.
So if everything goes as it should, then these Australian Open 2022 will take place without the best tennis player in the world. That’s right! It is not the behavior of the Australian authorities that is “shameful”, only the brazen ignorance of Novak Djokovic.
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