Nine-time Australian Open winner Novak Djokovic may not be
able to defend his 2021 title after his visa to enter
Australia was cancelled, Health Secretary Greg Hunt said
Thursday.
“The advice I got literally right before I came to you is
that Novak Djokovic’s visa has been cancelled,” he said at
a press conference. “It is a question for him whether to
object to it, but if a visa is cancelled, someone has to
leave the country.
Tournament organizers previously said that the Serb, who is
trying to break the record for most men’s Grand Slam
singles titles, had received a medical dispensation to
play in the prestigious tennis tournament.
The exemption was controversial when Djokovic travelled to
Melbourne on Wednesday, where he was reportedly arrested at
the airport after applying for a visa that does not allow
medical exemptions for not having been vaccinated against
Covid19, Australian news outlets reported.
According to The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald, the
Australian Border Force (ABF) contacted the Victoria state
government after learning of a visa problem presented by
Djokovic’s team en route to the country.
