Novak Djokovic is blaming the media for their “wrong coverage” of the infamous Australia visa debacle as he insists he came in the country with “all the valid papers.” In 2021 December, Djokovic applied for a special medical exemption and he was granted one.
But when Djokovic landed in Australia, he was detained and his visa was twice canceled before he was ultimately deported from the country. “I was really drawn into a storm in media worldwide that was related to anything to do with COVID and the vaccine.
All of a sudden I became the villain of the world which is obviously a terrible position to be in as an athlete,” Djokovic told 9News Melbourne.
Djokovic: I had all the valid papers
While Djokovic was waiting to see what would be his Australian fate, there was a good number of Australian people that wanted him deported.
Some of those who wanted Djokovic claimed that allowing the Serb to play would have indicated that he was entitled and treated differently than regular Melbourne citizens. Now, Djokovic says he definitely didn’t come to Australia trying to break the rules or anything like that.
“I understood why they were frustrated, but I have to say the media presented it in a completely wrong way because that’s not what happened, and a lot of people still have the wrong idea about what happened. There were two or three more people that came into Australia 10 days before I did with exactly the same exemption that I had and I was just following the rules.
My exemption was verified by an independent body and panel of doctors, so it was unknown who was giving the request, and I came in with all the valid papers. Everything got out of hand and then I was labelled as this or that.
It was so big in the media that I just could not fight that, I didn’t even want to get into that. I obviously wanted to stay here and play tennis, but at some point with the amount of craziness going around I just wanted to get out and go back home,” Djokovic explained.
