Novak Djokovic, the world’s No. 1-ranked male tennis participant and his sport’s most distinguished vaccination skeptic, mentioned 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 publish on his Instagram account alongside {a photograph} of himself with baggage on an airport tarmac. “I’m heading Down Underneath with an exemption permission,” he wrote. “Let’s go 2022.”
Match officers confirmed in an announcement on Tuesday that Djokovic had acquired a medical exemption after a evaluate of his utility 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 constantly refused to say whether or not he has been inoculated or intends to be.
In line with the foundations for the Australian Open, all contributors 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 advised that Djokovic was unlikely to play in Australia “beneath these blackmails and situations.”
These feedback got here solely days earlier than Novak Djokovic was named as a participant within the Australian Open by the match’s organizers after they launched the entry record for the principle draw.
“Defending champion Djokovic will play for an unimaginable tenth Australian Open trophy — and a males’s document twenty first main singles title — and would be the favourite in a draw which showcases 49 of the world’s prime 50,” the match mentioned in a assertion asserting the sphere.
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 in fact, everybody goes on the entry record,” Tiley mentioned 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 will probably be held Jan. 10. The match begins on Jan. 17.