By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Thursday January 6, 2022
The controversy doesn't stop in Australia. Another player has had her passport revoked and been sent to the same quarantine hotel as Novak Djokovic. That would be the now infamous Park Hotel, in Melbourne, where Djokovic has been held since Friday.
More: TA Misinformed Djokovic and Players on Medical Exemption, Leaked Document Shows
But this player’s situation is decidedly different than Djokovic’s.
Renata Voracova, a Czech player, used the same exemption as Djokovic (claiming to have contracted Covid within the last six months) but was originally allowed to enter the country. She has already played a WTA event in Melbourne, where she partnered with Katarzyna Piter of Poland and fell in first-round action.
Reportedly the 38-year-old was let into the country last month, without much of a fuss. It has been learned that her visa has been cancelled.
Now that the Australian government is under scrutiny after revoking the visa of Djokovic (the Victorian government and Tennis Australia are also under scrutiny for creating illusions in some players that their approved exemptions might actually alow them to play tennis at the Australian Open) and detaining him at the hotel while he waits for his appeal to be heard, it appears that the error of allowing Voracova into the country may have come to light after the fact.
Rumors are that Voracova’s Covid-19 infection within the last six months was better substantiated than Djokovic’s, but the fact that she was allowed into the country proves that he border wasn’t as strict against exemptions that originated from Tennis Australia and the State of Victoria before Djokovic made it known that he would be coming to town.
If looked at more skeptically, one could easily determine that the government only tightened its grip on Covid exemptions because it was seen as being weak in the public eye for potentially letting Djokovic into the country without a vaccination. Had it not been for Djokovic’s Instagram post the night before he arrived, one wonders if even he might have slipped through the border patrol, his exemption deemed substantiated.
It doesn’t mean Djokovic didn’t make a few missteps himself (and let's keep in mind there's a lot we still don't know about what he presented to border control and why it was insufficient). He probably shouldn’t have posted on Instagram for starters; his post sparked anger across Australia and put pressure on the federal government to show some spine.
Then there’s the question of why Djokovic’s claim of a previous Covid infection wasn’t deemed to be properly substantiated by border patrol (much of this information was learned from Aussie journalist Paul Sakkal, so leaf through his work if you’re not up to speed). Was Djokovic ill-prepared? Or perhaps naïve to think he could take Craig Tiley and Tennis Australia at their word that they’d help him into the country.
He now knows that he shouldn’t have been.
Political forces are most certainly at work in Australia, as Prime Minister Scott Morrison seeks to regain favor in the public eye, or at least distract his public from other missteps made with regard to the pandemic of late.
Now that Voracova has had her visa cancelled, more people will know that there were two standards with regard to Tennis Australia’s vaccine exemption: before Djokovic and after Djokovic. No matter what you think of Djokovic, it’s hard to deny that it isn’t a bad look for the powers that be.