{"id":5209,"date":"2022-01-15T15:39:55","date_gmt":"2022-01-15T20:39:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tempestmag.org\/v01_2020\/staging\/?p=5209"},"modified":"2022-01-18T10:27:22","modified_gmt":"2022-01-18T15:27:22","slug":"double-fault-novak-djokovic-vs-australia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/2022\/01\/double-fault-novak-djokovic-vs-australia\/","title":{"rendered":"Double fault: Novak Djokovic vs. Australia"},"content":{"rendered":"

A<\/span>t the time of writing it is still unclear whether Novak Djokovic will be able to defend his title in the Australian grand slam tennis event.<\/p>\n

Djokovic himself has always been very cagey about his health or vaccination status. In the first phase of the pandemic, he helped organize a tournament in Croatia which resulted in multiple infections including himself and other fellow tennis players. Recently<\/a>, he has made no secret of his anti-vax position and consults with a notorious Serb nationalist who has new-age ideas.<\/p>\n

From his belief in purifying water with emotions, where he claimed to have met and seen \u201cpeople who have used energy transformation, through the power of prayer and gratitude to turn even the most toxic food and water into water with curative powers,\u201d to his visits to the pyramids in Visoko, Bosnia \u2013 a mountain in the town is the center of well-documented hoax \u2013 where he goes to charge his body with positive ions, some of it comes off as quirky at best.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Even his latest justification for exemption because of a December COVID-19 infection is weakened when the press released pictures of him maskless in a public event a day or so after he is supposed to have been infected.<\/p>\n

His mom was outraged that her darling son had to share a hotel with \u2018illegal\u2019 migrants and other unsavory people and he was being crucified like Jesus Christ. His father says he is a victim of \u2018Corona fascism\u2019 and a \u2018Spartacus\u2019 of our age. The Serbian government rather grotesquely even called the Australian ambassador and complained that its favorite son was being maltreated.<\/p>\n

The Australian Tennis organizers were clearly concerned with getting the star player into their tournament and helped him with the \u2018exemption argument\u2019. Losing the number one player in the world has an impact on the commercial potential of the tournament. As some of the tennis players implicitly pointed out at a press conference there seemed to be two weights and two measures when it came to which players were being given special treatment. Everybody else had to go through all the hoops that are now required for international sports tournaments in the time of the pandemic.<\/p>\n