Australia cancels Novak Djokovic’s visa again, upending tennis star’s quest for record 21st Grand Slam title

“In making this decision, I carefully considered information provided to me by the Department of Home Affairs, the Australian Border Force and Mr. Djokovic,” Hawke said in a statement, adding that the decision was in the public interest.

The development marked the latest twist in a saga that has captured global headlines and created tensions between Australian officials, who insist they are simply following the nation’s rules, and their Serbian counterparts, who claim the tennis player has been unfairly targeted.

Djokovic was initially detained late on Jan. 5 after arriving in Melbourne, where Australian Border Force officials decided he did not have the valid medical exemption required of unvaccinated foreign visitors. He was held in a hotel that houses asylum seekers for more than four days until a federal judge restored his visa and ordered him released, ruling that border officials had treated him unfairly.

Djokovic, the defending Australian Open champion, is pursuing a record-breaking 21st Grand Slam title. He has won the Melbourne event nine times, and was included in the tournament draw as the top seed on Thursday.

Facing a rapidly spreading outbreak of the omicron variant, authorities in Victoria state said on Thursday that they would impose capacity restrictions at the Melbourne Park venues, with crowds limited to half their usual numbers when the championships kick off Monday. Existing ticket holders and ground passes would be unaffected.

With several vaccinated players testing positive ahead of the tournament, Djokovic’s mother, Dijana, raised questions about whether it mattered that her son is unvaccinated.

“If he’s healthy, if his PCR is negative, why he cannot play?” she told Australia’s Channel 7 News on Wednesday.

Weighing the risk Djokovic poses isn’t quite so simple, said Catherine Bennett, an epidemiologist at Deakin University in Melbourne.

“The protection from infection isn’t that different in someone who’s had a recent infection and someone who’s vaccinated,” she said, noting that it was unclear what variant was to blame for Djokovic’s positive test in December. “If he had omicron, then that would help protect against omicron, but we’ve still got delta here as well.”

At the same time, Djokovic’s disputed medical exemption cuts against the spirit of exceptions, which are designed to help people whose vaccinations are disrupted by infections, not people who have shown no interest in getting inoculated, Bennett said.

Djokovic’s admission that he broke Serbia’s isolation rules and provided Australian authorities with inaccurate travel information could be viewed as adding to the health risk he poses, Bennett added.

“That’s three strikes,” she said. “That’s the concern, that it’s not just one thing, it’s a multitude of things. And that gets harder and harder for people to say, ‘Oh, well, we’ll just make an exception because he’s a good player.’”

Vinall reported from Melbourne.

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