After having benefited from a exceptional exemption to participate in the Australian Open, Novak Djokovic will certainly have to leave the country due to visa problem, reveal The Age and the Telegraph, Wednesday 5 January 2022.
Barely landed in Melbourne, Novak Djokovic is asked to turn back. While the tennis player is the target of a controversy in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic, an administrative problem catches up with him. The Serb has always been evasive about the coronavirus vaccination. “I didn’t talk too much (about the vaccination) because everyone was guessing based on something I said a year ago. I will not say if I am vaccinated or not. This is a private matter, I think it is inappropriate to ask that of a person. I’m telling you, I don’t know if I’m going to go to Australia. Of course I want to go. Melbourne is the most successful Grand Slam tournament “, he declared in the columns of the Serbian daily Blic, in October 2021.
In this more or less vague context, and while the number of cases is skyrocketing across the world, Novak Djokovic announced on Tuesday January 4, 2022 that he had obtained an exceptional exemption to travel to the Australian Open. Medical secrecy requires, the Tennis Federation did not specify the reason, but this rebound continued to maintain the vagueness on the vaccination status of the athlete.
The visa of Novak Djokovic canceled
This exemption made the Australian Prime Minister jump as well as many Internet users, but in the end, Novak Djokovic will not participate in the tournament! A turnaround was revealed on Wednesday January 5, 2022. According to several media including The Age and the Telegraph, Novak Djokovic’s visa, which allows him to enter Australian soil, has been canceled. Local authorities are calling on him to leave the country as of Thursday, January 6.
But what exactly happened? The world number 1 tennis team has filled out the wrong visa form. Thus, the player was placed in solitary confinement, in a room at Melbourne airport. He was accompanied by two police guards, according to his father interviewed by the Serbian press. Novak Djokovic’s clan has filed a federal injunction to appeal the authorities’ decision, say The Age and the Telegraph. If his lawyers try to defend him, the tennis player has not shown enough evidence to justify his medical exemption.