Novak Djokovic has definitely lost: the world number 1, not vaccinated against COVID-19, left Australia on Sunday after the court rejected the appeal he had brought against his expulsion, ordered by the Australian government.
At the end of an interim hearing, the three judges of the Federal Court of Australia dismissed the 34-year-old Serb’s case, burying his hopes of winning at the Australian Open which begins on Monday a 21st Grand Slam title, a record.
“I am extremely disappointed,” Djokovic reacted in a statement.
“I will now take time to rest and recover,” said the player, whose career could suffer heavily from this setback.
“It makes me uncomfortable that so much attention has been focused on me over the last few weeks and I hope we can all focus now on the game and the tournament that I love,” he added. Djoko”.
He left Melbourne shortly after on Sunday at 10:51 p.m. (12:51 p.m. French, 11:51 a.m. GMT) on a flight to Dubai, noted an AFP journalist present on the plane.
This hasty departure is the epilogue of a long soap opera which began on January 4, the day of his departure for Australia, and has since kept the whole world in suspense.
Allowed to leave the detention center where he had been placed on Saturday and where he had spent several nights after his eventful arrival in Melbourne in early January, Djokovic followed the hearing online, which lasted four hours, from the offices of his lawyers in Melbourne.
In court, his lawyers described their client’s detention and deportation as “illogical”, “irrational” and “unreasonable”. Without convincing the three judges of the Federal Court who rejected the appeal unanimously, without the possibility of appeal.
“Anti-vaccination sentiment”
In his conclusions filed on Saturday before this same Court, Immigration Minister Alex Hawke argued that Djokovic’s presence in the country was “likely to represent a health risk”.
He said it encouraged “anti-vaccination sentiment” and could deter Australians from getting their booster shots, as the Omicron variant spreads rapidly across the country.
Novak Djokovic had been blocked on his arrival in Australia on January 5 and placed in administrative detention for the first time.
The player, who contracted COVID-19 in December, had hoped for an exemption to enter the country without being vaccinated, but the authorities had not accepted this explanation.
The Australian government suffered a humiliating setback on January 10 when a judge blocked Djokovic’s deportation, reinstated his visa and ordered his immediate release.
But the Minister of Immigration had counterattacked on Friday and canceled his visa for the second time under his discretionary powers, citing “health and public order reasons”.
“Great Sacrifices”
The Australian government welcomed its legal victory on Sunday, in the midst of an election campaign in a country whose inhabitants have endured for almost two years some of the strictest anti-COVID restrictions in the world.
“Australia’s strong border protection policy has kept us safe during the pandemic,” Immigration Minister Alex Hawke said in a statement.
“Australians have made great sacrifices to get here and the Morrison government is firmly committed to protecting this position,” he added.
In Serbia, where Djokovic is revered and seen as a national hero, Australia’s decision unsurprisingly went down badly.
“They humiliated themselves, Djokovic can come back to his country with his head held high and look everyone straight in the eye,” President Aleksandar Vucic got carried away about the Australian leaders.
The ATP, which manages the men’s professional circuit, estimated for its part that the decision of the Australian justice “put an end to a series of deeply regrettable events”.
“Court decisions on public health issues must be respected,” she added, recalling that she “continues to strongly recommend vaccination for all players”.
Before recalling that Djokovic “is one of the greatest champions of our sport and his absence from the Australian Open is a loss for tennis”.
Among the players, Vasek Pospisil, a close friend of “Djoko”, defended him by recalling that “Novak would never have gone to Australia if he had not received an exemption from the government to enter this country”.
“I don’t like that he finds himself in this situation and I don’t like the fact that he has been taken into custody,” Andy Murray said.
Djokovic’s Australian fiasco makes at least one happy, the Italian Salvatore Caruso (150th in the world) who, taking advantage of his status as ” lucky loser “(eliminated in qualifying but recovered thanks to this package), will replace him in the table of the Australian Open and will play Monday evening in his place.
“I am in this rather special situation of being a bit of the “lucky loser“the most famous in history,” he noted.