The left hand doesn’t know what the right is doing Down Under and it’s culminated in making the Novak Djokovic affair one giant mess.
You won’t find too many Australians feeling overly sympathetic towards an unvaccinated Novak Djokovic after his attempt to enter the country was blocked.
But plenty of people are unimpressed with how the whole affair has been handled.
Tennis Australia (TA), the Victorian government and Federal government are all trying to shirk responsibility for the bumbling sequence of events that saw the world’s best male tennis player turned away at the gates when he thought he had every right to be here.
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TA confirmed Djokovic had received a medical exemption to play in this month’s Australian Open before Border Force stepped in. The ABF and Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Djokovic didn’t provide sufficient evidence as to why he was eligible for a medical exemption, so wasn’t allowed in.
Now he’s stranded in an infamous Melbourne hotel, without his private chef and awaiting Monday’s legal challenge against the decision to cancel his visa.
That neither federal and state governments, medical panels nor TA were on the same page when it came to what Djokovic required to gain entry into Australia has left the country open to fierce criticism.
Things get messy as authorities change their mind
It emerged on Friday night TA didn’t inform players that contracting Covid-19 within the last six months was not a valid reason to gain an exemption — despite earlier receiving correspondence from Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt in November explaining as much.
Leaked letters have intensified the blame game and things descended even further into chaos when unvaccinated Czech star Renata Voracova had her visa cancelled — despite being let into the country earlier because her exemption was deemed permissible.
She was using the same reasoning to avoid vaccination as Djokovic — that she had been infected with the virus in the past six months. Initially she was given the green light and had even played an Australian Open warm-up event in Melbourne.
But as questions were asked about whether Djokovic was being treated differently and made a scapegoat because of his status, Australian authorities changed their mind and decided to send Voracova back home too.
‘This is too much’: World reacts to Australia’s botched job
Friday night’s developments only sparked more cynicism about how the Djokovic saga has been handled as all parties came in for heavy fire from commentators here and abroad.
Tennis Australia boss Craig Tiley is in the firing line as tennis fans questioned whether he’d be able to keep his job.
Former Australian Open director Paul McNamee tweeted: “So now Czech player Renata Voracova has been rounded up and detained like Novak. This is too much.”
Serbian tennis journalist Sasa Ozmo said: “When we all just take a step back, can you believe what is actually happening, the things we are talking about? The world is upside down really.”
American tennis commentator Brett Haber wrote: “Even if Tennis Australia gave players incorrect advice about prior Covid infections being sufficient to trigger a medical exemption (which now appears to be the case, and which sucks), why didn’t the Aussie government decline @DjokerNole’s visa when he originally applied for it?”
Nine reporter Tom Steinfort said “heads must roll at Tennis Australia”.
“This is just embarrassing – now we’re hunting down people already in the country just to save face,” he tweeted.
Sports producer Nancy Gillen wrote: “This is becoming such a mess. There seems to have been a complete disconnect between tournament organisers and the Government with regards to vaccination exemptions, and this is the result. Personally can’t see Tennis Australia CEO Craig Tiley surviving this.”
Veteran tennis reporter Jon Wertheim said the saga just “keeps getting weirder”.
“I think it was a combination of people playing fast and loose with regulations; I think part of it is … duplicity, but part of it seems to be incompetence,” he said in a piece published by Sports Illustrated.
“I mean, it seems like there’s a disconnect between even if he had this sort of wink-wink from Tennis Australia, how he was allowed to board the plane is a mystery.”
Actor Tristan Gemmill said on Twitter: “What a mess the Djokovic situation is. He is obviously culpable to an extent but should never have been allowed to travel in the first place: the disconnect between the Vic govt/Tennis Australia and the Federal Border authorities is also to blame. Shambles!”
Tennis reporter Ben Rothenberg said the onus was on Djokovic to be vaccinated but questioned why TA was bending over backwards for him.
“You know what would have solved all this? If the #AusOpen just didn’t allow for exemptions from its mandatory vaccination policy. That was always an option,” he tweeted.
“TA tried to paint shades of grey into their rules, and the resulting splatter made the whole thing look a complete mess.”
Former tennis umpire Richard Ings called the situation a “farce”, adding: “Tennis Australia and it’s biosecurity people seem to have some explaining to do.”
Chief sports writer at the UK Telegraph, Oliver Brown, tweeted: “51,356 positive cases in state of Victoria today. And Djokovic, who tested negative to board his flight, is somehow an unconscionable risk to the community?
“The mood is turning. When even Nick Kyrgios is expressing compassion for Djokovic’s circumstances, it is a fair sign Australia has got this horribly wrong.”
An editorial in the same British paper also hit out. “What is the point of hosting a major sporting event if you are not prepared to let one of the leading figures in that sport compete,” it read.
“The country is lumbered with restrictions that no longer make any rational sense, but which have nonetheless become totems of a failed zero Covid strategy that are difficult politically to unwind.”