“Craziest year of any athlete,” John McEnroe salutes Novak Djokovic for standing by his principles despite insulting deportation
John McEnroe thinks it was very brave of Novak Djokovic to be able to stand up for his beliefs and maintain his cool despite all the adverse situations he had to face last season.
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Novak Djokovic and John McEnroe (Image Credit: The Telegraph)
A man who is known for his outrageously bashing and bold attitude during his playing years, American tennis legend John McEnroe is very impressed with Novak Djokovic and how he handled the situation in the aftermath of his deportation from Down Under last year. The Serb was disgracefully asked to leave the country just a day before the start of the Australian Open 2022 over ambiguity on his vaccination status against Covid-19. He was also banned from entering Australian territories for three years.
However, the Federal Government of Australia changed their stance and allowed the 21-time Grand Slam champion to participate in the Australian Open 2023. This time, many tennis legends consider him as hot-favorite to win the Australian Open men’s singles title for the tenth time in his career. John McEnroe too agrees.
“He’s certainly the favourite in my book going in. Obviously, there’s got to be a lot of emotions going through his head, that’s for sure. It was one of the craziest years I’ve ever seen any athlete go through, and certainly in our sport. So of course, he wants to prove that he’s still got it, and it looks like he’s still got it to me and to most guys, so it wouldn’t surprise me.
“I think you can see a little bit of where, when he gets in his head to do something, it’s pretty tough to get him to alter what his thinking is. And so now, he’s in the right frame of mind. Something tells me he’s going to be pretty tough to beat there,” he said in latest interview.
John McEnroe believes Novak Djokovic is mentally very tough player
Novak Djokovic, because of his stance against Covid vaccination, had to miss many tournaments last season, including the US Open and the Australian Open. However, he did not budge on this issue or his beliefs. John McEnroe believes that it tells a lot about his mental state.
“You have got to give him credit for sticking to his guns. You know, it’s incredible that he’s really refused to sort of cave in and it cost him. Maybe it cost him having the all-time record grand slams, we don’t know yet. We’ll have to see how it plays out. But you can see how mentally tough he was just having to deal with all this starting with Australia where he was deported. That was a year ago. A lot has gone on since then,” he continued.
However, what the Australian authorities did last season was an extreme move. The seven-time Grand Slam champion also praised Novak Djokovic for forgiving the authorities for their last-year stance and continued playing his game.
“It’d be hard not to be angry. The fact that he seems to be in a good headspace is great and he’s sort of forgiven the tournament or whoever, the Australian authorities because that was absolutely outrageously bad when I think what happened. Absurd in my opinion, and he got denied an opportunity to win an event that he won a lot of times, so thankfully, it seems like that’s gone away,” he said as reported by EuroSport.
In Novak Djokovic’s absence last year, Rafael Nadal and Daniil Medvedev played in the final. But the Spaniard took the Australian Open title home. This time, however, the competition will be greater.
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