Novak Djokovic will need vaccination to play as ‘safety measures’ will be taken when Tennis Returns: Rafale Nadal


Novak Djokovic will need vaccination to play as ‘safety measures’ will be taken when Tennis Returns: Rafale Nadal

Nadal Djokovic

Tennis star Rafale Nadal says that if the tennis governing bodies make Coronavirus vaccine shots obligatory, then Novak Djokovic will need to take vaccine to keep playing.

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Nadal, who is currently ranked world number two told La Voz de Galicia newspaper that Djokovic and all the players will have to follow every rule when the tennis eventually returns to action.

“Then Djokovic will have to be vaccinated if he wants to keep playing tennis at the top level,” Nadal said.

“The same for me. Everyone will have to follow the rules, just like now we have to stay at home.” Djokovic recently said he was against taking a vaccine for the coronavirus even if it became mandatory to travel. He later said he was open to changing his mind.

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“If the ATP or the International Tennis Federation obligates us to take the vaccine to play tennis, then we will have to do it,” Nadal said. The Spaniard compared it to the restrictions players already have on medicines because of doping controls.

“It’s about following the rules, nothing more than that,” he said. There is still no vaccine available against the new coronavirus, which has killed more than 270,000 people around the world.

He said, “It’s about following the rules, nothing more than that.”

Djokovic said on Monday that a local club in Spain had mistakenly allowed him to practice in one of his courts.

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Tennis players are likely to be authorized on courts in Spain starting on Monday, May 11. Nadal said he returned to practice but did it in a private court.

Nadal recently said that he was pessimistic about the return of tennis in 2020. He said that if given the option, he would end this season altogether so that tennis could resume normally in 2021.

Djokovic won the Australian Open in early February, before the game was halted due to the virus. It was his 17th Grand Slam trophy overall. Only Roger Federer, with 20, and Nadal with 19, have won more men’s Grand Slam singles trophies than Umarovic.

From the beginning of March to at least the middle of July, more than 30 accepted incidents have been eliminated. Wimbledon was canceled for the first time in 75 years, while the start of the French Open has been postponed from May to September.

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The US Open is scheduled to begin in New York in late August, but organizers said they will decide in June whether the tournament will be held.