Tuesday, January 04, 2022

Novak Djokovic Heads Down Under, Dubious Medical Exemption in Hand


Although my fiancĂ© has been predicting this from the get-go, I was still somewhat surprised to see that the Australian Open capitulated to nine-time champion Novak Djokovic’s anti-vaccination stance, granting him a medical exemption that is clearly not in good faith. That said, part of me did wonder if forcing him to miss a Grand Slam event at which he could make history was the right thing to do, either. Ideally now that the “will he or won’t he play” question has been answered, the focus will shift to the tennis, where fellow 20-time major winner Rafael Nadal is also on hand looking to break the all-time record. But sadly, something tells me all anyone is going to want to talk about is the vaccine, which could very well be the kind of distraction that causes the Serbian superstar to stumble like he did last year when all eyes were on him during his pursuit of the Golden Slam — and he’ll have no one to blame but his unvaccinated self. 


And here’s why the topic isn’t likely to go away: What “acute major medical condition,” as listed here by Australian authorities, could the greatest player of all time possibly have? 

The only thing on this list that I could see working as a "legitimate" excuse is if he tested positive within the past six months, in which case people are just going to have to accept that this is a way in, even knowing that he probably won't get vaccinated when the allotted time passes anyway. But that he never announced that he had doesn't bode well for this explanation, although I guess he would argue he doesn't owe anyone information about his health status.

1 comment:

Jeffery said...

Djokovic is flirting with Covid. He is probably in good enough shape to not get a severe case however one never knows.