Novak Djokovic, expelled from Australia yesterday, landed a little while ago in Belgrade, after stopping overnight in Dubai with a flight from Melbourne. The plane landed at 12.16 at Belgrade’s Nikola Tesla airport, where numerous reporters and camera crews had been waiting for hours. The news of his expulsion from Australia this morning stands out on all the front pages of Serbian newspapers, with terms such as “scandal” and “shame” in the foreground.
However, good news for him does not even come from France, where the Minister for Sport, Roxana Maracineanu, in view of Roland Garros (from 22 May to 5 June), has made it known that the vaccination pass, adopted on Sunday evening, will also be applicable to professional athletes, without exception. «As soon as the law is promulgated – the minister stressed -, it will become compulsory for all spectators, practitioners, French or foreign professionals to enter public buildings already subject to the health pass. We will work together to preserve the competitions and to be the ambassadors of these measures at the international level ».
Djokovic has landed in Belgrade, the tennis player dribbles cameras and media
«Thanks to the sports movement for the work of conviction with the last and rare unvaccinated. We will work together to preserve the competitions and to be the ambassadors of these measures at the international level “explained Maracineanu, thus going beyond her own words with which last week she had hinted that the health bubble in force during the Roland Garros tournament it would have made it possible to receive unvaccinated athletes from abroad, such as Djokovic. This option is no longer on the table.
A press release from the Ministry of Sport states that by May “the situation could change” but that at the moment everything is blocked: “There is no derogation,” reads the Equipe. When asked about Rmc, Christophe Castaner, president of the LaREM group at the National Assembly, also closed the door. «There is no doubt that for great sportsmen, for artists, for personalities, the rule is derogated. The rule applies to everyone. He (Djokovic) has no vocation to play if he does not respect a rule that will apply to spectators, ball boys, professionals who will manage a Roland-Garros shop … ».
The number 1 in the world therefore no longer has any guarantee, to date, of participating in the Parisian major of which he is the holder of the title. Knowing that he is already unlikely to see him in Indian Wells and Miami in March, the Serbian is preparing for months of utter uncertainty.