The timing is perfect. A few days after being expelled from Australia in the case that shook the tennis world, Novak Djokovic returns to the front of the media scene. After losing his standoff with the Australian government, which deprived him of a new participation in the first Grand Slam tournament of the year, the Australian Open, which he had won nine times, the world number 1 launching a seduction operation?
This is what we can think after the announcement made this Wednesday, January 19 by the Reuters agency, which interviewed Ivan Loncarevic, the boss of QuantBioRes, a Danish biotech which seeks to develop a treatment against Covid-19.
The entrepreneur thus declared that the acquisition of the 80% stake by the tennis player took place in June 2020, i.e. a year and a half ago, but he refused to specify the amount. The company is developing a peptide, which prevents the coronavirus from infecting the human cell, and plans to start clinical trials in Britain this summer, again according to Loncarevic, who stressed that the company was working on a treatment and not a vaccine.
The CEO said the company has a dozen researchers working in Denmark, Australia and Slovenia. According to the Danish Companies Registry, Djokovic and his wife Jelena own 40.8% and 39.2% of the company respectively.
No exemption either for Roland-Garros
This announcement comes as the world number one, who refuses to be vaccinated, was excluded from the first Grand Slam tournament of the year, the Australian Open, and expelled from the country after having his visa canceled. Djokovic now risks being unable to play in some tournaments, as rules regarding unvaccinated travelers tighten in the third year of the pandemic and some tournaments reconsider exemptions.
The most immediate concern for Djokovic relates to the next Grand Slam, Roland-Garros in May, after the Minister Delegate for Sports, Roxana Maracineanu, declared on Monday that there would be no exemption at the new vaccination pass law.
