DISASTROUS END! Novak Djokovic faces a potential 3-year ban in Australia, unlikely to play the Australian Open until 2025
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Novak Djokovic
It is a Sunday that Novak Djokovic would want to forget as soon as possible- but chances are that most likely, he won’t. A panel of three judges ruled against Djokovic and upheld the Immigration Minister’s cancellation of his visa. This means that he’ll have to leave Australia at the earliest and hence won’t be able to defend his Australian Open title.
It all started a couple of months ago when Tennis Australia announced that only vaccinated players will be allowed to compete in the 2022 Australian Open. Djokovic has time and again voiced that getting vaccinated or not should be a ‘personal choice’ and shouldn’t be imposed on anyone. He himself wasn’t vaccinated and hence received medical exemptions on account of a positive PCR test dating December 16 to compete at the 2022 Australian Open.
But things went south when Djokovic landed in Melbourne. He was detained on arrival and got his visa cancelled. He decided to take the matter to Federal Court and eventually won the case on Monday. He was declared a ‘free man’ by the judge and got his visa reinstated. Later, he even travelled to Melbourne Park and practiced on the Rod Laver Arena for three days. He was also named the top seed for Australian Open and was present in the main draw too.
But on Friday, the Immigration Minister Alex Hawke decided to revoke Djokovic’s visa once again. The Serbian maestro got his visa cancelled for the second time in 10 days and once again decided to challenge the decision. But today, the Federal court ruled against him and upheld Hawke’s decision.
Djokovic too has accepted the verdict and won’t he challenging the decision any further. He will now be deported from Australia and hence he won’t defend his Australian Open title.
Djokovic faces a possible 3-year Australian ban
It is believed that Djokovic’s lawyers made the challenge to the court that his visa was cancelled in a bid to avoid civil unrest which was baseless. But the court decided to uphold the decision. This means that the decision to ban Djokovic from entering into Australia also stays.
The details on the same will be included in Federal court’s official statement that’ll be released later today or tomorrow. If the decision stays, Djokovic will not be able to participate in the Australian Open for the next three years- i.e. 2022,2023 and 2024. This will hamper Djokovic’s quest to be the Greatest of all time as 9 out of 20 of his majors are from Down Under.
Also read: BREAKING: The official verdict on Novak Djokovic’s case is out, no Australian Open for the Serbian
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Lakshya Chopra
(2595 Articles Published)