Published on : 16/01/2022 – 07:21Modified : 16/01/2022 – 13:17
Novak Djokovic left Australia on Sunday after the country’s authorities canceled his visa, dampening the unvaccinated tennis star’s hopes of competing at the Australian Open. The champion said he was “extremely disappointed”. He said he wanted to take time to “rest and recuperate”.
After a long legal soap opera which ended in a debacle for Novak Djokovic, the tennis champion left Australia on Sunday January 16 on a flight to Dubai.
He will be the big absentee from the Australian Open which opens Monday in Melbourne. The Australian justice had a few hours earlier rejected the appeal of the world number one in tennis against the cancellation of his visa, considering that the Serb, not vaccinated against Covid-19, represented a “health risk”.
This decision, taken unanimously by the three judges of the Federal Court, definitively buried the hopes of the 34-year-old Serb to conquer, during the Australian Open which begins on Monday, a 21e record Grand Slam title.
“I am extremely disappointed with the Court’s decision to reject my appeal against the Minister’s decision to cancel my visa,” the player wrote in a statement. “I respect the Court’s decision and will cooperate with the relevant authorities regarding my departure from the country.” “I will now take time to rest and recover,” said the player, whose career could suffer heavily from this setback.
The Australian government, meanwhile, welcomed their win over Djokovic.
Allowed to leave the detention center where he was placed on Saturday, Djokovic had followed the hearing online, which lasted four hours, from the offices of his lawyers.
The Court’s decision, announced by its president James Allsop, is in theory impossible for the player to challenge, forced to leave Australia immediately with possible long-term repercussions for his career.
Debates around the star’s anti-vaccination stance
In his conclusions filed on Saturday before the Court, Immigration Minister Alex Hawke argued that the presence of Novak Djokovic 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. The presence in Australia of the champion could even “lead to an upsurge in civil unrest”, added the minister.
Although he described the risk of Novak Djokovic himself contaminating Australians as “negligible”, the minister said his “disregard” for past health rules against Covid-19 was a bad example.
Sunday before the Court, the lawyers of “Djoko” had qualified the detention of their client and his possible expulsion of “illogical”, “irrational” and “unreasonable”.
The government “doesn’t know what Novak Djokovic’s views are right now,” lawyer Nick Wood pleaded, saying his client had never publicly supported the anti-vaccination movement.
Government attorney Stephen Lloyd had responded that the champion had not been vaccinated nearly two years after the pandemic began and that he had repeatedly ignored health rules, including failing to comply. isolating while he knew he was infected were sufficient evidence of his position.
With AFP and Reuters
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