Djokovic 'science' is just toxic for tennis

Picture this locker-room scene. A brief downpour has just interrupted a five-set epic involving Novak Djokovic - the man who stands unchallenged as the world's best tennis player. Unfortunately, he is also building a reputation as the world's most credulous athlete.

One player's trainer is spooning powders into a drink bottle. He plans to revive his client with a mixture of potassium and sodium electrolytes. The other trainer, working for Djokovic, stares deeply into a cup of water. He is projecting positive emotions that are supposed to turn it into a sacred draught of holy energy. Sound fanciful? Perhaps. Yet this is exactly the sort of guff that Djokovic has been spouting in a series of Instagram Live chats with his latest guru, Chervin Jafarieh.

"I've seen people that ... through the power of prayer, of gratitude, they managed to turn the most toxic food or most polluted food into the most healing water," Djokovic said on Wednesday.

"Scientists have proven that molecules of water react to our emotions."

Righto.

It is not news that Djokovic is a crank. His autobiography begins with the diagnosis of a gluten allergy in 2010, based on the feeling of weakness that came over his muscles when he held a slice of bread against his stomach. He has suggested that telepathy and telekinesis are "gifts from this higher order, the source, the god".

Until a couple of weeks ago, such quackery seemed either annoying or humorous, depending on your mood. Rather like the post-match "Wonderbra" celebration in which Djokovic cups his hands under his pectorals and then thrusts them in the direction of the fans.

Novak Djokovic.Credit: AP

But then, last month, he announced himself as an anti-vaxxer. Within 24 hours, Serbia's leading epidemiologist was forced to warn Djokovic that he had "created misconceptions" and should avoid the subject in future "because you have a huge impact".

Now Djokovic is giving Jafarieh - a former real-estate broker who sells bottles of "Advanced Brain Nutrients" for $US50 (£40) a pop - a regular platform via his Instagram Live channel. Increasingly, we are realising that this is no longer a funny-facepalm situation.

There are serious ramifications for tennis. As the president of the Association of Tennis Professionals player council for the past four years, Djokovic was recently named the third most influential person in the game - behind Roger Federer and Serena Williams - by a survey in French sports daily L'Equipe.

Neither is he afraid to mix his hobbies with his governance role. Two years ago, he insisted that the player council listen to a briefing about a mobile pod which - using some combination of cryotherapy and air pressure - was supposed to rejuvenate muscles. Despite Djokovic's best efforts, the idea that the ATP should cart one of these around the world was rejected.

Apart from being against the regulations of certain countries, it was hugely expensive, and sat on the back of a trailer so vast that few events could accommodate it.

Tennis probably gives more decision-making power to its players - who constitute 50 per cent of both the ATP and Women's Tennis Association organisations - than any other sport. Which could be one reason why its politics are always in such a mess.

The vast majority of professionals left school as early as they could. Their livelihoods are based around athleticism. Running a £5 billion sport is something they do in their spare time. It is true that certain players have proved to be visionaries behind the scenes. Think Billie Jean King or Donald Dell. But both were Second World War babies, from an era when you could still go to college before turning pro. Today, their most admirable descendants are people with the intellectual humility to test their ideas and consult the experts.

Djokovic, clearly, is not one of those. As he continues to propound discredited ideas under the catch-all title of "science", you have to wonder if he is the right man to be steering tennis through the COVID-19 crisis.

The Telegraph, London