‘Selfish’: World No. 1 Novak Djokovic finally shows some remorse

Serbian star Novak Djokovic has finally shown some remorse after his highly-publicised visa saga, describing his actions as “selfish”.

World No. 1 Novak Djokovic has conceded it was “selfish” of him to conduct a face-to-face interview knowing he had tested positive to Covid-19 two days earlier.

The 20-time grand slam champion, who is not vaccinated against the virus, dominated headlines last month after he became embroiled in a visa saga ahead of the Australian Open.

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The 34-year-old believed he had been granted a medical exemption for the Covid-19 vaccine because he had contracted the deadly virus in December.

During the two-week visa ordeal, Djokovic admitted to partaking in an interview with French newspaper L’Equipe after knowing he had tested positive to Covid-19 earlier that week, a decision he described on social media as an “error of judgement”.

His reasoning for going ahead with the 33-minute interview and photo-shoot was because he “didn’t want to let the journalist down”.

“I accept that I should have rescheduled this commitment,” he wrote on Instagram at the time.

Speaking to Serbian national TV (RTS) on Friday morning AEDT, Djokovic conceded it was “selfish” of him to attend the interview without informing the journalist of his Covid-19 test

“I admit that it was selfish what I’ve done by attending the interview with L’Equipe,” he said.

“My mistake which I own. I understand that not all people will forgive me and I understand the critics.”

Serbian tennis player Novak Djokovic landing at Dubai Airport. REUTERS/Loren Elliott

Djokovic also revealed plans to return to Melbourne in pursuit of a 10th Australian Open title — despite copping a three-year ban from entering the country following his highly-publicised deportation.

However, the Serbian is permitted to apply for special dispensation from the Immigration Minister to enter the country.

“I want to come back to Australia in the future and to play on Rod Laver Arena again,” he said.

“A lot of professional and personal beautiful things happened to me there. Despite all this, I have a great connection with Australia.”

Last month, Spanish superstar Rafael Nadal defied the odds to win the Australian Open and secure a 21st grand slam title, a men’s record.

Djokovic believes he could have stopped Nadal in Melbourne Park, which he described as his “backyard”.

“Nothing in life is guaranteed, but I did like my chances at AO this year,” he said.

“I feel like I’m in my backyard on RLA. Out of respect to Rafael Nadal who won and to all the players, I don’t dare to say that I would’ve won, but I think I had a good chance.”

Djokovic also claimed he did not regret posting about his medical exemption on Instagram before arriving in Australia, which several tennis pundits believed was his undoing.

“I value honesty, it is something I’ve grown up with,” he said.

“I was aware that my name was mentioned in the media in the 2-3 months prior to AO. I wanted to be transparent. I don’t regret it. I don’t know if things would have been different if I hadn’t posted that.”

Serbian Tennis player Novak Djokovic. Photo by AFP

Earlier this week, Djokovic claimed that if his involvement in future tournaments was contingent on being vaccinated, then “that is the price I’m willing to pay”.

“I understand and support fully the freedom to choose whether you want to get vaccinated or not,” he told the BBC. “I have not spoken about this before and I have not disclosed my medical record and my vaccination status because I had the right to keep that private and discreet. But as I see, there is a lot of wrong conclusions and assumptions out there and I think it’s important to speak up about that and justify certain things.

“I was never against vaccination. I understand globally, everyone is trying to put a big effort into handling this virus and seeing an end soon hopefully to this virus. And vaccination was probably the biggest effort that was made, probably half of the planet was vaccinated. And I fully respect that.

“But I’ve always supported the freedom to choose what you put in your body. For me, that is essential. It is really the principle of understanding what is right and what is wrong for you, and me as an elite professional athlete, I have always carefully reviewed, assessed everything that comes in, from supplements, food, the water that I drink, sports drinks, anything that comes into my body as fuel. Based on all the information I got, I decided not to take the vaccine as of today.

“The principles of decision making on my body are more important than any title or anything else. I’m trying to be in tune with my body as much as I possibly can.”

Currently, Djokovic’s next scheduled tournament is at Indian Wells, which is a vaccinated-only event set to start on March 20.

Earlier on Thursday, Australian tennis star Alex de Minaur was named in a Telemadrid report as one of a number of high-profile people caught up in fake vaccination passport network.