Novak's vaxxing questions

Rafa Nadal may have stoutly declared that the Australian Open (AO) would be great with or without Novak Djokovic. But like Banquo’s ghost, the debate over the world’s top-ranked tennis player persistently hovers over the year’s first Grand Slam. On Thursday, an Australian court revealed why it had ruled to revoke his visa and ban him for three years: He would have inspired the anti-vax movement in the country.

In other words, Djokovic’s expulsion had less to do with the legalities and all to do with his celebrity status. The court’s “health and good order” argument may have been valid were it not for several aberrations in the saga.

Australia’s anti-vax movement is certainly widespread and aggressive. Online anti-vax sites grew four times after the vaccine mandate was rolled out in early 2021. By December, the groundswell of protest had expanded to violent street demos threatening death to politicians. Melbourne, venue of the AO, has been ground zero of these protests. You can understand why; Melbourne endured over 260 days of lockdown, the world’s longest, and some restrictions continue for even vaccinated Australians.

It should have come as no surprise when the immigration minister issued an unequivocal no-jab, no-visa policy ahead of the country opening its international borders in January. So Djokovic would not be able to defend his title and bid to overtake Nadal and Roger Federer in the Grand Slam stakes, the media declared.

But soon after his immigration minister’s statement, Prime Minister Scott Morrison clarified that unvaccinated people could, in fact, enter the country, provided they served two weeks’ quarantine. Mind you, not any old unvaccinated person (such as a desperate refugee), but those who qualify under “skilled workers” and economic benefit criteria. “If there is a special exemption that is warranted for an economic reason, well, that can happen,” he told the media in October.

These conditions apparently covered tennis players appearing in the AO. As Morrison said, “We want major events in this country. A lot of jobs depend on it. We want Australia to show to the world that we’re open, we’re getting on with it.”

And got on with it they did. The state of Victoria, of which Melbourne is the capital, stipulated fully vaxxed players for domestic sporting tournaments but made exceptions for AO participants. On January 4, the CEO of Tennis Australia Craig Tiley explained that players either had to show proof of vaccination or an application for a medical exemption “In the case of tennis players, that’s far more rigorous than anyone coming into Australia applying for a medical exemption,” he said. As we know, two medical panels — one by Tennis Australia and the other from the Victorian government — assessed applications for exemptions. Tiley said these exemptions were assessed in a “blind way”, meaning the assessors don’t know who the applicants are. So we are to assume Djokovic’s exemption was given without knowledge of his identity (we are also supposed to believe that the panel ignored the glaring evidence of a Serbian Covid certificate).

Most significantly, Tiley clarified that the reason for granting the exemption remains private between the player concerned and the panel. Players can reveal their status at their discretion. So much for transparency. What’s more, several such players armed with exemptions were in Melbourne preparing for the tournament already. “They’re here,” Tiley admitted.

Djokovic took all this at face value, blithely informing his nine million twitter followers that he was on his way to Melbourne to defend his title — and setting off a gale-force controversy before he even touched down. We know that his exemption was granted on grounds that he had apparently contracted Covid on December 16 and therefore had temporary immunity. Then pitiless social media promptly circulated photos of the unmasked tennis champion mingling with children and granting a media interview on that day. Djokovic claimed he did not know about his positive test, hardly an exoneration. 

Around this time, Der Spiegel studied the Serbian health system’s digital data and published a report suggesting that Djokovic’s positive report may have been doctored. But those findings got little traction because the debate had spun out of the control of facts. As unrest grew, with vaccinated stars such as Andy Murray, Nick Kyrgios and Stefanos Tsitsipas weighing in and revelations of visa untruths emerging, the final court verdict was a chronicle foretold.

Morrison —  he who threatened to jail Australians entering the country from India last year because it was a Covid-hotspot — will be happy. He’s got a federal election to face in May where the Djokovic verdict will do his well-established reputation for xenophobia no harm. Djokovic, a hand-on-heart Serbian nationalist and now an even bigger hero in his native land, must be ruing the opportunity lost as a result of the high-profile anti-vax image that he’s assiduously cultivated since 2020. That it’s only a matter of time before he overtakes the Big Two is beside the point.

But here’s something worth wondering. On January 7, the Australian government said it was examining other cases of unvaccinated tennis players who were granted exemptions. Whatever happened to those investigations?