BarcelonaAustralia is the promised land of Novak Djokovic. Hundreds of Serbs fill the stands of Melbourne‘s central track, Rod Laver Arena, every January to see their hero in action. The 34-year-old Serbian tennis player has managed to depend on himself to become the player with the most Grand Slam titles in history. Younger than Nadal and Federer, with whom he is tied for 20 titles, Djokovic usually shines especially in Australia, where he has already won nine times. In the entire history of tennis, only one player has won a Grand Slam on ten or more occasions: Rafa Nadal at Roland Garros.
But the Australian dream, in which he was always accompanied by more than 75,000 Australian citizens with Serbian roots, has become a nightmare, with Djokovic locked inside a police camouflage car to return him to the hotel, where he is awaiting the judge’s ruling on whether he will be able to defend the title. The sentence should be known tonight from Saturday to Sunday, Catalan time. And all for the sake of not wanting to get vaccinated. And for having made mistakes in the visa application process, arguing that he was entitled to participate in the tournament despite not being vaccinated, as he would have just passed the covid a few weeks ago. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has accused the Australian government of turning the player into a “scapegoat to divert attention from the mismanagement” of the pandemic. “They act in front of the gallery, to earn points among the voters,” added Vucic, who called for the player’s freedom.
In Australia, the majority of the population has been vaccinated and advocates for compliance with the law. But in Serbia just 50% of the population has been vaccinated, which has led some medical community spokesmen to complain about the attitude of their most famous athlete, as they do not want to be vaccinated. ‘ends up being a bad example for young people. On April 20, 2020, for example, during a live Facebook post with other Serbian athletes, Djokovic said: to be able to travel ”. And in fact, in the middle of the first wave of the pandemic, he organized a circuit of tennis exhibitions in the Balkans, which ended up provoking a lot of positives, including Djokovic himself and his wife. The tournament, which was scheduled to be played in different cities, could not be completed when after the Belgrade event, with 5,000 people in the stands, players Grigor Dimitrov, Borna Coric, Viktor Troicki and Alexander Zverev also gave positive.
The two sides of the Serb
Novak Djokovic, unlike Roger Federer, an always elegant player, has never ceased to be theenfant terrible of the ATP circuit. He is a player who combines excellent moments of play with outbursts of tone, such as when he has faced fans or broken his racket in outbursts of anger. Djokovic, who made his professional debut at the age of 16 in 2003, was initially an extroverted player who entertained spectators with jokes at the end of matches, or with imitations of his opponents, such as Rafa Nadal. But the pandemic has hinted at the darker side of a player who also showed a lack of empathy when he refused to understand the statements of tennis player Naomi Osaka and gymnast Simon Biles, athletes who took a break to take care of your mental health. On this occasion, the Serb stated that if you want to be professional and want to be the best, you cannot have excuses and you have to be strong. A few days after saying this, during the Tokyo Olympics, Novak Djokovic lost the roles in a quarterfinal match; he broke his racket and ran out of medals.
Born in Belgrade, Djokovic started playing near the ski slopes in the Kopaonik region of southern Serbia, where his uncle was a ski instructor and his parents owned a pizzeria for the guests of the Kopaonik region. tracks. Both his father, Srdjan, and his mother, Dijana, made his son a good skier, but all that changed in 1999. That year, after decades of violence in Kosovo, right next to Kopaonik, NATO it took action by bombing Serbia, accusing it of crimes against humanity. The ski slopes were closed and the Djokovics left for Belgrade, where they spent some nights in anti-aircraft shelters. The young player, who had already discovered tennis, trained for many months in an empty swimming pool near their home, as the tennis club in the New Belgrade area was closed for months. At that time, when the player was 12 years old, they marked the character of a person who became the best tennis player in history. Right now he is one step away from achieving it, but his sins condemn him.
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