2021 was a funky year for tennis, the only sport I follow religiously. The season started in February in Australia, which was under a series of Covid-lockdowns in the country’s attempt to just stay at 0% infection. Tennis players were allowed in the country, but many were forced into hard quarantines for two weeks ahead of the Australian Open. It’s been hanging over this year’s tennis season that no one knew what would happen in Australia in 2022, and whether that Slam would even happen under the same conditions. This week, the Australian government and Tennis Australia finally confirmed their rules for athletes entering the country: every player will need to have proof of double-vaccination (unless, I’m assuming, they had the Johnson & Johnson one-shot). If players are not prepared to be fully vaccinated coming into Australia, they will not be allowed in the country.
Personally, I love that the AO is now the first Slam to have a vaccine mandate. It should have been the US Open in September, but the USTA dropped the ball and didn’t want to mandate it. Australia’s mandate will mean that so many tennis players will get the vaccine in the off-season, because so many of them have been traveling and playing this year unvaccinated. Novak Djokovic is a nine-time AO champion, and he’s won the AO singles title the past three years. Djokovic is notoriously squirrelly about vaccines, mandates and science. This week, he made some very unfortunate comments to Serbian media about Australia’s vaccine mandate.
This time around, Djokovic, whose 20 Grand Slam titles are tied with Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer for the most among male players, replied that vaccination is “a private matter and an inappropriate inquiry” when asked about his status in an interview with Blic, a Serbian publication.
“Things being as they are, I still don’t know if I will go to Melbourne,” Djokovic said (via Reuters). “I will not reveal my status whether I have been vaccinated or not. It is a private matter and an inappropriate inquiry. People go too far these days in taking the liberty to ask questions and judge a person. Whatever you say, ‘Yes, no, maybe, I am thinking about it,’ they will take advantage.”
Djokovic added that he wants to compete and expects a final determination from Australian leaders in the next two weeks or so.
Whenever an athlete – or anyone, really – starts talking about how their vaccination status is a “private matter,” I just assume they are unvaccinated. It’s a safe assumption in Djokovic’s case, especially with all of the other sh-t he’s saying here, as well as his history of embracing pseudoscience. It is NOT an “inappropriate inquiry” for a government to ask for proof of vaccination, nor is it inappropriate for a public figure (arguably one of the most famous Serbian people of all time) to GET ASKED if he’s vaccinated when it affects his ability to do his job.
Anyway, the Australian government is not f–king around. All of their health ministers and government officials are taking a hard line on this, as they should. No travel or work visas will be issued to tennis players who are unvaccinated. I’m honestly so excited for all of these dumbf–k tennis players to grumble and whine and then ultimately get the shots. Even Stefanos Tsitsipas – another idiot – basically admitted that he would get vaccinated once it was mandated.
BREAKING: Immigration Minister Alex Hawke says Novak Djokovic will NOT be allowed into Australia if he is not double vaccinated.
"Our health advice is that when we open the borders everyone that comes to Australia will have to be double vaccinated," Mr Hawke told @RNBreakfast.— Stephanie Peatling (@srpeatling) October 19, 2021
Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Avalon Red.
Can’t stand him, so nothing of value will be lost if he doesn’t show up.
Exactly, hopefully other countries will follow suit and he can be blocked from all competition, the idiot.
He is such a selfish a-hole.
and so un-self aware
I thought this guy was funny. He excels in his sport but really, in real life, he’s a self absorbed moron. He’s the guy that asked a government to wave player’s obligation to isolate. LOL He’s the idiot that did a party tour in europe and spread the infection everywhere. But still, he still thinks that his TENNIS PLAYER status can influence anything in this PANDEMIC. Playing good tennis is not gonna make a difference for anybody now. Kinda useless, and his statement is moronic. If you dont wanna go, don’t. and dont let the door hit you on your way out. You wont see anyone crying. But you’ll have populations thanking you for staying the f out of their way. Selfish imbecile
By refusing to say whether or not he’s vaccinated, he’s saying he’s unvaccinated.
Hey, your body, your choice, dude-bro.
But choices have consequences and the world doesn’t have to bend to accommodate you.
@ North of Boston : Exactly. Your “rights” come with responsibilities to your community and you do not get to move around the world while potentially carrying a disease that could kill others. Like you said, choices have consequences, so stay home, dude.
Preach!
This guy couldn’t be more stupid if you dashed his brains out. Next.
Your body your choice *ha! Those right wing douches are very selective about THIS!
BUT… there are a LOT of things that are mandated (made law) that you have to follow as a citizen (state/country/world). I’m sure he has a drivers’ license to drive. I’m sure he had vaccines to enter school as a child. I’m sure he files his tax papers in order not to face fines (at least on what he earns here at tournies).
It makes me SO FURIOUS that there is now ANOTHER variant starting to show up (I heard it’s in the UK and Israel) that we did NOT have to deal with if all these morons had gotten vaccinated when they were supposed to. We wouldn’t have as many host bodies for it *to* mutate in, and we’d be able to protect the more vulnerable in our societies that *can’t* vaccinate (due to health or age, at this point).
Selfish, self-absorbed narcissistic piece of garbage.
I think someone here called him Novaxx Djocovid and that’s all I can think of when I see him now.
whatever someone says this, it’s obvious that they’re unvaccinated. vaccinated people have no problem saying they got the shot.
We already know he’s not vaccinated or he would have said so. I don’t understand being angry about a country protecting its citizens from a deadly pandemic. Oh well. Guess he won’t be defending his championship.
New champion this year then. So exciting!
Yeah that means he’s not vaccinated.
Lots of countries require proof of vaccinations for entry. I’m sorry dude, I have no sympathy. This stance is affecting your job. And possibly the health of other people around you. Get. The. Shot.
Your status as a complete tool, on the other hand, is not in question.
Love this comment.
Of course he isn’t and go Australia.
Meanwhile, here in the UK the government is refusing to consider going to ‘plan B’ for the winter and making masks mandatory again even though we have the highest infection rates. Other countries are going to stop letting us in. I’m finally going to get to visit my French family in a couple of weeks to check they remember what I look like and have been setting up my app to prove that I’m double vaccinated before can I go into a restaurant. Love it.
Ok, just go away. Maybe to an uninhabited island.
Why does it seem like every time I read about tennis, it’s always about players being petulant or saying stupid shit? I don’t follow the sport, but is this as common and frequent as it seems?
Yep. “Tennis brat” is a thing, and has been for a long time. Even mediocre players act like this. Playing an individual sport means there’s no team of fellow players to keep you humble, and you have a lot of handlers around, from a very young age. Lots of tennis players seem stuck in petulant adolescence.
Because they’re not writing about Andy Murray, who is lovely.
I mean, okay? He’s free to do things that are allowed for people who do not want to disclose their vaccination status. And if he doesn’t want to prove vaccination at places and sites where that’s a requirement, it’s just his choice to not go there. He doesn’t *have* to be a pro tennis player or compete in any given competition, right? He can just do whatever. It’s like when you want to get into a college or a job but won’t show them your school records or ID because it’s too private — you don’t have to.
Melbourne is the most locked down city in the world, we’re only just starting to open up now and we want to enjoy the fragile Covid normal we’ve managed to create. If that means people like Novaxx aren’t allowed to compete at the AO, so be it. I’m still pissed at him for his ridiculous and entitled list of demands from this year’s slam, thinking he was above the two week mandatory quarantine. Good riddance, I say.
Aus was frustratingly slow to rollout vaccines but it’s massively ramped up and people have embraced it. There’s widespread support and genuine desire to keep Covid rates and deaths low. Hopefully by the end of the year we will have one of the highest vax rates.
As for the AO … Aussies need to be vaccinated (or have a genuine medical exemption) to get on a plane or go to a tennis match. Same deal for players. They aren’t above ordinary citizens. It’s really that simple.
If Djokovic doesn’t play headlines will inevitably say he was banned or forced out but it will be him *choosing* not to play. I think he will though: he wants the Grand Slam record, it’s his best tournament by far, and it’s a lot of $$$$ too.
What an arrogant stupid p***k. Maybe he and those Washington football coaches that got fired can start their own little antivaxx sports club where they can get around and puff about their freedumb together.
Ok cool, Bubonic Novak.
You think this flies with any other contagious disease? Why just this one gets a pass to be treated like this?
Or maybe he IS vaccinated and doesn’t want to admit it because it makes him “look weak” or whatever. I think a lot of those antivax bozos (Rogan, etc) are secretly vaccinated. This guy has too much to lose by being unvaccinated. Long Covid means the end of his career, and while “looking weak” from admitting to being vaccinated would be bad, it would be worse to actually lose his fitness and indeed his ability to play sports at all from Covid. Djokovic in the hospital with Covid, prone, on a ventilator isn’t good for his legacy, Djokovic in a wheelchair, on an oxygen tank? My guess is that his money people and handlers had a “come to Jesus” talk with him and forced him to get vaccinated, then said, “Fine, don’t admit it if you don’t want to.” He has too much on the line, and too many people who profit from him, to let him be unvaccinated, is what I think. Going unvaccinated might even make him uninsurable in terms of his endorsements.
I don’t think antivaxxers actually believe in long covid. At least the ones I know don’t. To them that is all some other ilness or issue. It’s depressing.
Doesn’t really matter. Long Covid believes in them, whether they call it by that name or any other!
Yeah, or they don’t think it will happen to them. Maybe someone else who’s old or with poorer genetics or something. (not my thoughts to be clear.)
DjoCOVID already had COVID. Not Delta, though, I’m pretty sure. Maybe he thinks he he has “natural immunity” now. Guess he doesn’t realize that immunity can wane, and it’s better to have existing antibodies floating around in your bloodstream when the virus stops by, then having your body have to start manufacturing them after the invasion.
I wonder what this means for players who got single shots or those unapproved in Australia. It’s situations like this where tennis’s lack of a single governing structure or real players union becomes such an obvious albatross.
I only wish Canada would have done the same and not provided any exceptions for NBA and NHL players who aren’t vaccinated. The travel rules should be the same for everyone entering the country.
So I’ve travelled to rural parts of South America and Africa and to get my visa I had to be…vaccinated! For tb, yellow fever, the works! And no one complained or made it into a big deal about rights. Rules are rules
Whenever I hear people complain about privacy and vaccination status I think about how, as a parent, I had to produce vaccination cards for my kids to register them for school. How I had to keep track of their vaccinations and all the documentation, how my friends who travel would get the appropriate shots… all this done without thinking about rights, and status, privacy, yada yada yada. This is really the worst timeline we live in when we have life saving vaccines and the good fortune to be a species that figured out how to combat and defeat annihilation-level disease, and yet there are some that will deny and turn against the very thing that keeps them alive on this planet. I have no time for them, and their clueless ingratitude.
I disagree. I think by saying that, he’s trying to have it both ways. He wants the protection of the shot, but wants to lean into the weirdness of the antivax movement. It’s like the Fox News anchors who refuse to say whether they’ve gotten the shot. The Fox News corporation has one of the strongest vaccine mandates in the corporate world, but they try to capitulate to the audience by pretending they haven’t gotten the shot.
I agree. The bottom line is that Novak is still an employee. He’s an employee of all of the companies he endorses, and they have mandates. At the end of the day, it’s the people who control the money who determine what happens. Those Fox News idiots blather about the vaccine, but they themselves are all vaccinated as a condition of employment. My guess is that Djokovic is vaccinated because (I have no idea what brands he’s aligned with) Major Brand insists on it. Money for tennis players comes from branding–big money, that is. They have to pay a whole lot of people in their entourages, they have insane travel costs, plus they have complicated tax situations. He likely needs his big endorsements, even with all of the success that he’s had thus far. (Yes, he’s likely set for life, but he also doesn’t want to start drawing down his own money without making more–not yet, anyway).
Novak isn’t a regular employee though. It’ possible though that if he was to shoot a commercial or something in the future though, he might have to be vaxxed. You might be right though, as he’s gone from saying he’s not vaxxed to it’s private. He’s someone quite sensitive to criticism though, so I can see him saying it’s private so he doesn’t have to take so much flack.
I don’t believe he is vaccinated. Remember, Djokovic had Covid so he probably believes the antibodies are protecting him. He isn’t anti-vax, he is anti-Covidvax.
With more and more countries mandating vaccines for visitors I guarantee we will see an uptick in the persons getting vaccines. This includes tennis players who want to get paid.
I live in Melbourne and we’re just getting out of the longest lockdown in the world. Things are precarious here and we’re all desperate to get back to some sense of normality…the last thing we need is bloody ignorant unvaxxed tennis players jeopardising our health system and newfound freedom.
I don’t think he’s vaxxed, and personally I like that Australia is forcing him to either get immunized for or disqualified from the Australian Open. I seriously wish the Netherlands, where I live, took vaccination as seriously. About 84% of adults are vaxxed here, but the fricking Dutch believe in personal choice. Next to no one wears masks here anymore and coincidentally our numbers are rising again. I really want to travel to the US to see my family for Xmas, and like Sarah from the UK who wants to visit France, I really hope this will still be possible!! The Australians are spot-on with demanding travelers be immunized.
The only people I believe are vaxxed when they refuse to reveal their status are people (especially older or vulnerable people) living in the Bible belt in Holland: it’s like the normal laws are reversed there. Doctors’ offices have secret visiting times so people can sneak in to get immunized. This…is not Novak. I’m curious if he’ll stand by his principles and miss the Australian Open. Somehow I doubt it.
I’m going to a reception tonight for work and I have to show my vaccination card to even get in the door. Lots of us do this all the time. It’s not a big deal if you’re vaccinated.
They shouldn’t let him in the country.
I hope they don’t let him in. So many people have died and he treats it like a joke.
A lot of these people are probably vaccinated but don’t want to lose their anti vaxx fans (like Fox News employees and Joe Rogan). These people don’t want to lose out on money so I think he will or already is vaccinated but doesn’t have the backbone to admit it.
I was just gonna say that MTG also shat out words like “private matter” and “HIPAA violation” regarding her vaccination status. These covidiots know that they have to keep up the charade. Well, Novak only needs to remember what happened to Johnny Depp and Amber Heard when they tried to f*ck around with the Australian Government.
He’s such an idiot. My guess is he isn’t vaccinated, he wouldn’t be doing the whole “I won’t tell you” song and dance routine if he were vaccinated. If he doesn’t go to Australia, we’ll know he’s not vaccinated. He even said he didn’t know what he was going to do about Australia, why would he say that if he was vaccinated? What’s he going to do, protest their vaccine and quarantine rules by not going if he actually is vaccinated? That would be the stupidest protest of all time. He’s not going to sit out the Australian Open if he’s vaccinated by trying to make a point about Australian vaccination rules. If he’s vaccinated, he will be going. He can’t hide behind his “my body, my choice.”
Athletes tell us about their groin injuries, their protein consumption, how many hours they sleep, who trains them and where, what ligaments were bruised or torn and what company made their underwear. Won’t someone PLEASE think of their privacy?
263 days in lockdown since March 2020, home schooling, no ability to visit family & friends, curfews, only allowed out for 1-2 hours to exercise & or visit a supermaket/chemist & only in 5km. Melbournians are only coming out of lockdown partially this Friday & (mostly) we’ve done all of this begrudgingly to keep safe after our PM stuffed our vaccine rollout. We are exhausted. Typically Novak gets a lot of support at the AO from locals. Right now, we think he is a selfish pillock.
People really get their knickers a in a twist about Djokovic. Clearly he’s not vaccinated, he’s telling us he’s not going to be in Australia. It’s ok, really. Isner’s not going to be there either I’m guessing for the same reason. Probably a few others. The AO will go on and everything will be fine.
Of course Djokovic could change his mind and get vaccinated… let’s see how much he really wants to break the GS tie. Of course everyone will lose their shit if he does that because how dare he do anything. Look, I get it, he’s been a total dick about this but the response has been hysterical.
Yes Feebee it’s so uncool to care about public health in the midst of a pandemic that has killed millions. It’s so “hysterical.”
I know right. Everyone just calm down only 5 million people have died and millions more with long term health issues. And we know that this tennis player besides being a tennis champion is a well respected scientist and doctor who knows his stuff!
No he’s a moron and an idiot who contributes to this pandemic continuing even when we have life saving vaccines available. Done with him and everyone who is an anti vaxxer.
Novax Djocovid is back y’all! Thankfully not on tour this time…
The Australian Open is an event for over 2,000 players.
You could be discussing the conditions for all players, men&women, singles&doubles.
Instead, it’s all about Novak.
It’s as if nobody else existed.🤔
I’ll take it, thank you very much.😍
I call it poetic justice.😉
Reminds me of my friend saying vaccination is personal thing… yet if our kids school requires testing for attending swimming lessons and mask wearing(if parent wants to attend,otherwise is closed to public ) she is 1st to protest quite aggressively that it’s her personal right not to test or wear the mask. (I’m double jabbed) but I’m embarrassed every time with selfishness…..
Especially when pandemic started she was the first one who took child off the school and locked herself at home saying she won’t risk family life by getting to school with other children and teachers…..