Channel 9 needs to dish up a proper apology. We know the broadcaster takes a jingoistic approach to its coverage of the Australian Open. There’s commentary bias in matches involving local players. Lots of happy-clappy, Happy-Slam fluff pieces. Non-stop promotion of its own programs. All of which is well and good. We’re used to it. There’s plenty of good and gritty tennis talk among it.
Host Tony Jones’s self-indulgent piss-taking of Djokovic’s harrowing deportation and his fans completely missed the mark, however. There’s a time and place for blokey, lazy, smart-arsey, just-a-bit-of-banter commentary, and that wasn’t it. It’s grand slam tennis, not morning radio.
Jones likes to provide unsolicited character assessments. Let’s return the favour. I reckon 9 has some brilliant commentators. John McEnroe, Jim Courier, Lleyton Hewitt, Sam Smith, Todd Woodbridge, Casey Dellacqua, Alicia Molik and John Millman, to name a few, know their stuff. They have opinions and analyses worth listening to. They know the sport inside out and carry the coverage.
Jones, less so. He forgets the golden rule of being a host. You’re not the star. Don’t try to be. You’re the middleman. Keep the show rolling along. Pass the microphone to the real experts. Stay out of it. You’re a Test cricket wicketkeeper. You’re going great when nobody notices how great you’re going. If Tony Jones doesn’t approve of Serbian supporters or Djokovic, who asked Tony Jones? A few folks were hitting the mute button on his segments long before now. Just saying.
Sledge Djokovic and he takes it supremely well. We’ve been giving it to him for 20 years. His response to the heckler in his second-round match was all class. He keeps coming back and giving his all. No player in the history of the Open has provided more colour to the event. All while his supporters wave the Serbian flag like their lives depend on it.
That flag, and those people, and his country, mean the world to Djokovic. When he won Olympic gold last year in Paris, one of his first remarks was, “For my country.”
You’ve gotta appreciate where he’s come from. Djokovic grew up in Belgrade during the Yugoslav Wars. Bomber planes flew overhead while he sang Happy Birthday. He practised tennis in an empty swimming pool. When NATO bombed Belgrade in 1999, Djokovic was 12.
“We would wake up every night for two and a half months because of the alarm, the planes flying over and it was devastating, frightening,” he once recalled.
“It was the worst thing that we have ever seen. Just seeing air flights over your head, dropping bombs and hospitals, it was terrible. Many innocent people died. Thankfully I did not personally lose anyone close to me but I know people who have lost their dearest ones and that’s a scar that stays in you forever. This memory will stay with me forever.”
Jones’s comment to kick Djokovic out of Australia was spectacularly inappropriate. His deportation in 2022 was among the most shocking experiences of his life.
Jones sounded mildly remorseful on Monday morning. “I can only again tell Novak what I told him 48 hours ago,” Jones said.
“And that is I do apologise if he felt I disrespected him.”
If?
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We underestimate this about Novak Djokovic. The intensity of his national pride. Criticise him personally and he cops it sweet. Take aim at his supporters or his country and he’ll return fire.