Serbia's Novak Djokovic after defeating Croatia's Marin Cilic during their Davis Cup tennis semi-final match at Madrid Arena in Madrid, Spain, on Dec. 3, 2021.Bernat Armangue/The Associated Press
Cast your mind back to April, 2020. That was a different you. That you wasn’t sure if the global economy was about to crater, but he/she was sure that that second bottle of Cab Sauv wasn’t going to drink itself. That you still believed making sourdough starters would solve all your problems.
We’ve all changed since then. Grown flabbier, more anxious and less sure of ourselves. All of us except Novak Djokovic. The best tennis player in the world has spent the past two years getting stronger.
Back in April, 2020, Djokovic made headlines as the first famous person – maybe the first person? – to plant his flag in political territory that did not yet exist.
“Personally, I am opposed to vaccination and I wouldn’t want to be forced by someone to take a vaccine in order to be able to travel,” he said in an interview.
The reaction to Djokovic’s statement may have been the last time everyone agreed on anything COVID-related – that both it and he were ridiculous. He was laughed out of the shop.
It would have seemed equally bizarre then had you been told that Djokovic’s stand – some version of ‘I don’t like it, but you do you’ – would come to represent the most reasonable wing of the coalition.
But had you been told that he would eventually have his way, you’d have found that impossible to credit.
But on Tuesday, Djokovic announced via Instagram that he has been granted a medical exemption to play in the upcoming Australian Open. The word “vaccine” was not mentioned.
Nobody over 12 years old can travel to Australia unless they are vaccinated, with rare exceptions. What a coincidence that the most famous traveller headed there this year is one of those exceptions.
Tennis Australia must have spent all morning hovering over the ‘Send’ button. They had several releases ready to go, each of them touting a “rigorous process” involving “two separate independent panels of medical experts.”
Maybe Djokovic does have a medical issue that precludes him from getting vaccinated. It seems just as likely that Tennis Australia has a tennis issue that precludes them from telling a nine-time winner of its tournament who is about to set the career record for men’s grand slams to stay home.
As Jamie (brother of Andy) Murray put it shortly thereafter: “I think if it was me who wasn’t vaccinated, I wouldn’t be getting an exemption.”
Djokovic approached this problem in the same way he approaches opponents. For two years, he has applied steady, relentless pressure.
He hasn’t ranted about it. He hasn’t called people out or whined in the press. He is that rarest of modern sporting types – a genuine oddball who isn’t also a jerk.
But Djokovic has made it clear that he has a carrot and a stick and is happy to give you whichever one you’d prefer.
The carrot is his presence and the attention and money that generates. The stick is the fact that your tennis event – and especially your slam – becomes an asterisk tournament if he decides to take a pass.
No one who matters asked for the stick in 2021. Djokovic won three majors and lost in the final of the other.
Three of the four slams this year have a vaccine mandate. The Aussie Open is first up, and planted in a country that has gone to extreme lengths to keep the virus out. If anyone was going to fight this fight, it was the Australian Open.
The organizers certainly talked a good game about it. Back in November, Australian Open chief Craig Tiley was patting his organization on the back for leading the way forward.
He pointed to the percentage of vaccinated pros in the ATP and WTA. According to him, it had increased to 85 per cent from 50 per cent in just a few weeks.
“We take a lot of credit for that because we put a vaccination requirement on it,” Tiley said.
Shortly thereafter, Djokovic’s father, Srdjan, grumbled in an interview about Australian “blackmails and conditions.” Then all of a sudden a whole bunch of independent medical experts decided that the rules, well, you know, we didn’t mean, like, rules. It was more like a very strong suggestion. But if you can’t … are you sure that … okay, okay, we get it, no problem. We didn’t mean to upset you.
Now that Australia has bent the knee, Wimbledon and the U.S. Open have the excuse to do the same. Djokovic fought City Hall and won.
On the one hand, what a bunch of idiots. There are exemptions and then there are exemptions. If you need one to do your job and feed your family, then, fine, I guess. I won’t argue with doctors.
But these loopholes were not designed to service the needs of multikajillionaires who want to travel around glorifying themselves in foreign locales. I’m not saying that Djokovic shouldn’t be allowed in. That’s Australia’s business. I’m just saying call the thing what it is – a VIP exception rather than a medical exemption.
And on the other hand, there’s something to be said for someone this serenely bullheaded. It’s hard not to equate Djokovic’s vaccine stand (though I hesitate to give it the credit of that word) with his professional brilliance.
He’s never been an overpowering player. He isn’t exceptionally graceful or alarmingly quick.
Djokovic’s standout ability is that he’s a backboard. You keep hitting balls at him and he keeps putting them back until you crack. You can humiliate him for two sets and you know he’s not giving up. There has never been a more self-confident, relentless player in tennis.
The question isn’t why the bleating softies who run the tennis establishment decided to get into a battle of the wills with this sort of guy. It’s whether they ever truly believed they might win.