When the unvaccinated tennis star – believing he had an exemption from Australian laws – was detained in Australia, the eyes of the world turned to our COVID regime. A year on, plenty has changed.
as he boarded a flight to Australia saying he had “exemption permission” to come into the country. That Instagram post put authorities on alert after months of speculation about Djokovic’s vaccination status. The Serbian had refused to reveal his vaccination status. Australian tennis officialdom had resisted a looming vaccine mandate ahead of the tournament, fearingDjokovic believed he was exempt from Australia’s quarantine regime on the basis that he had recently caught the virus.
In the scenes that followed, Djokovic’s family in Serbia called the incident “the greatest sporting and diplomatic scandal” in history and“They are trampling over Serbia and by doing that, they are trampling on the Serbian people,” the player’s father, Srdjan, told reporters.Unbeknown to Djokovic, he had been caught in a row between the Commonwealth and Victorian governments and Tennis Australia over the confusing rules that had been devised to hold the tournament during a global pandemic.
Australian Open director Tiley told this masthead the environment in the lead-up to the tournament had been hard to navigate.
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