Why we’ll miss Djokovic at the Australian Open

Well, Alex Hawke, Australia’s Immigration Minister, has succeeded where no one else has since 2018. He has knocked Novak Djokovic out of the Australian tennis championship. 

This doesn’t necessarily mean that there will be a new name on the Cup for Rafa Nadal is still in the field, but certainly, Djokovic will have to wait to win the title for the tenth time.

Many tennis fans will doubtless be disappointed by Hawke’s decision to revoke Djokovic’s visa and, presumably, have him deported, but many Australians who have endured one of the most restricted of Covid lockdowns will be delighted. 

Hawke may find himself in an unusual position as a popular politician. And I doubt if he will care if he is burned in effigy in Belgrade.

One has to say that Djokovic has only himself to blame. He has refused to be vaccinated against Covid and also seems to have ignored any requirement to isolate since testing positive last month. 

There’s a whiff of Boris Johnson about his position: rules and regulations are for little people. It would surely have been more honourable to say, “I’ve a conscientious objection to vaccination. Therefore I won’t go to Australia to defend my title.”

He will be missed of course. His record in Melbourne is extraordinary. He has been champion there nine times. Nobody else has won more than six titles: Roy Emerson in the amateur era, Roger Federer in the Open one. 

Moreover, if Hawke had not revoked his visa and Djokovic had won the title again, that victory would have been his twenty-first Slam title, taking him ahead of Federer and Nadal. Now he will have to wait for Roland Garros or Wimbledon, in both of which tournaments he will be the defending champion.

Of the great men’s champions of this century, Djokovic is by some way the most interesting, as a man if not, admittedly, the most interesting or exciting on the court. Most tennis fans would probably opt for Federer on account of the beauty of his play and his remarkable longevity. 

I confess I wouldn’t. I have long found his air of superiority tiresome. Of course, he has a lot to be self-satisfied about, but he irritates me; I can’t help it. 

Doubtless, this says more about me than it does about Federer, and not to my credit. But there it is. For years I have always wanted him to lose to Nadal, Murray and Djokovic.

With Djokovic, there’s an intriguing contrast between the orthodox efficiency of his game and the eccentricity of his character, beliefs and opinions. 

On the court, he often seems mechanical, off the court a bit weird; and now it’s the weirdness or eccentricity of his beliefs and opinions which have caught up with him and landed him in this mess. 

It’s also the case that his upbringing, as a child during the years when Yugoslavia disintegrated in civil war and barbarity, invites sympathy and calls for understanding.

Moreover, of all the great tennis players of his time, he is, to my mind, the only one whose life after tennis provokes speculation and seems likely to be interesting. You feel he might do anything, and it would be no great surprise if he became President of Serbia.

In his absence, this Australian tournament is wide-open, as wide open as the Grand National at Aintree is most years. The old order is surely changing, yielding place to new, for one can’t see Nadal or, still less, Murray surviving six rounds to win the title, though it will be no surprise if in a few months Nadal wins yet again at Roland Garros.

There can be no short-price favourite, though I daresay the closest to that is the Russian Daniil Medvedev, who beat Djokovic in the American championship final in the autumn and lost to him in straight sets in last year’s Melbourne one. 

It’s with some confidence that one can say a home winner is unlikely. The last Australian to reach the final was Lleyton Hewitt in 2005, and he was the first since Pat Cash was the beaten finalist in 1988. The old days of Australian tennis dominance are now a distant memory. 

Things look better for the home crowd in the Women’s Singles where Ashleigh Barty is the top seed. Yet here too, it’s been a long wait. The last Australian woman to win the title was Evonne Goolagong way back in 1976, the last defeated Australian finalist Wendy Turnbull in 1980.

As for British interest, nobody can reasonably expect that Emma Raducanu will repeat her remarkable triumph in New York; she will do very well to reach the quarter-finals. 

Among the men, Cameron Norrie is seeded 12 and Dan Evans 22, but Norie hasn’t yet won a match this year, and, though Evans is in good form, his record in Slams is not encouraging. Andy Murray, unseeded, has a very tough first-round match. Only a determined optimist can envisage him going deep in the tournament.

So it’s an interesting tournament undoubtedly, but without Novak Djokovic, it’s Hamlet with the Prince written out of the play.