Novak Djokovic, the world’s No. 1-ranked male tennis participant and his sport’s most distinguished vaccination skeptic, stated on Tuesday that he would play on this month’s Australian Open after receiving a medical exemption.
Djokovic, the lads’s match’s defending champion, revealed his plans in a submit on his Instagram account alongside {a photograph} of himself with baggage on an airport tarmac. “I’m heading Down Below with an exemption permission,” he wrote. “Let’s go 2022.”
Event officers confirmed in an announcement on Tuesday that Djokovic had obtained a medical exemption after a overview of his software by two unbiased panels, a process that strongly suggests he stays unvaccinated.
Djokovic’s participation within the Australian Open, the tennis season’s first main, was doubtful as not too long ago as final week, when he reportedly withdrew from an occasion in Sydney. Djokovic, who has had Covid, has persistently refused to say whether or not he has been inoculated or intends to be.
In accordance with the principles for the Australian Open, all individuals should be vaccinated towards the coronavirus or apply for and obtain a medical exemption from an unbiased panel of consultants.
In December, Djokovic’s father, Srdjan Djokovic, raised new questions on his son’s participation, and his vaccination standing, when he steered that Djokovic was unlikely to play in Australia “below these blackmails and circumstances.”
These feedback got here solely days earlier than Novak Djokovic was named as a participant within the Australian Open by the match’s organizers once they launched the entry record for the primary draw.
“Defending champion Djokovic will play for an unbelievable tenth Australian Open trophy — and a males’s report twenty first main singles title — and would be the favourite in a draw which showcases 49 of the world’s high 50,” the match stated in a assertion asserting the sector.
However Craig Tiley, the chief govt of Tennis Australia, which hosts the match, shortly moved to make clear that Djokovic’s inclusion within the entry record was not a affirmation that he had agreed to be vaccinated, or that he could be allowed to enter Australia, which has a number of the world’s most strict coronavirus protocols for foreigners.
“As a matter after all, everybody goes on the entry record,” Tiley stated in a native tv interview on the time. “It’s not a dedication record about who’s precisely within the draw. That is available in a number of weeks’ time, when the precise record, and draw, will get finalized for the Australian Open.”
The Open’s draw can be held Jan. 10. The match begins on Jan. 17.