As top seed and World No. 3 Novak Djokovic of Serbia opens his Wimbledon title defense, he made it quite clear nothing has changed regarding his COVID-19 vaccination status.
Djokovic was famously detained and then deported from Australia ahead of the Australian Open last January due to his unvaccinated status.
The 20-time Grand Slam winner was allowed to play in the French Open and is allowed to play at Wimbledon despite being unvaccinated, but the U.S. Open in August is a different story.
The United States currently requires all visitors to be vaccinated against COVID-19 and Djokovic reiterated to reporters he won’t get vaccinated just to play tournaments, even the U.S. Open.
When asked if he had definitely decided to not get the COVID-19 vaccine, Djokovic was very clear with his response.
“Yes,” he said.
“As of today I’m not allowed to enter the States under these circumstances. I’m aware of that,” he told reporters.
“That is an extra motivation to do well here. Hopefully I can have a very good tournament, as I have done in the last three editions. Then I’ll just have to wait and see. I would love to go to States, but as of today, that’s not possible.”
Djokovic has already missed Masters 1000 tournaments in Indian Wells, California and Miami as a result of his unvaccinated status.
Últimas Noticias
Sinner-Alcaraz, the duel that came to succeed the three phenomenons
Beyond the final result, Roland Garros left the feeling that the Italian and the Spaniard will shape the great duel that came to help us through the duel for the end of the Federer-Nadal-Djokovic era.
Table tennis: Brazil’s Bruna Costa Alexandre will be Olympic and Paralympic in Paris 2024
She is the third in her sport and the seventh athlete to achieve it in the same edition; in Santiago 2023 she was the first athlete with disabilities to compete at the Pan American level and won a medal.
Rugby 7s: the best player of 2023 would only play the medal match in Paris
Argentinian Rodrigo Isgró received a five-game suspension for an indiscipline in the circuit’s decisive clash that would exclude him until the final or the bronze match; the Federation will seek to make the appeal successful.
Rhonex Kipruto, owner of the world record for the 10000 meters on the road, was suspended for six years
The Kenyan received the maximum sanction for irregularities in his biological passport and the Court considered that he was part of a system of “deliberate and sophisticated doping” to improve his performance. He will lose his record and the bronze medal at the Doha World Cup.
Katie Ledecky spoke about doping Chinese swimmers: “It’s difficult to go to Paris knowing that we’re going to compete with some of these athletes”
The American, a seven-time Olympic champion, referred to the case of the 23 positive controls before the Tokyo Games that were announced a few weeks ago and shook the swimming world. “I think our faith in some of the systems is at an all-time low,” he said.
