Djokovic willing to miss French Open, Wimbledon to avoid COVID jab

Men’s World No 1 Novak Djokovic says he would rather miss out on grand slams than be vaccinated against COVID-19.

The Serb told the BBC – in his first major interview since being deported from Australia earlier this year due to his inoculation status – that he was not anti-vaccination in general but believed people had the right to choose whether they were jabbed or not.

Asked if he would miss the French Open and the Wimbledon over his vaccine stance, he said it was a price that “I’m willing to pay”.

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“The principles of decision-making on my body are more important than any title or anything else,” Djokovic said.

“I’m trying to be in tune with my body as much as I possibly can. I understand and support fully the freedom to choose… whether you want to get vaccinated or not, and 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. It’s important to speak up about that and justify certain things.”

The 34-year-old confirmed that he had not received any vaccination for COVID-19, but said: “I understand that globally, everyone is trying to put a big effort into handling this virus and seeing, hopefully, an end soon to this virus.”

Djokovic acknowledged it would be difficult to compete in “most of the tournaments” on the calendar due to current COVID vaccine rules.

“I’m part of a very global sport that is played every single week in a different location. So I understand the consequences of my decision and one of the consequences of my decision was not going to Australia, and I was prepared not to go, and I understand that not being vaccinated today, I’m unable to travel to most of the tournaments at the moment.”

“As an elite professional athlete, I have always carefully reviewed, assessed, everything that comes in from the supplements, food, the water that I drink, or sports drinks, anything really, that comes into my body as a fuel. Based on all the informations that I got, I decided not to take the vaccine as of today.”

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Before the Australian Open, the season’s first slam, Djokovic was tied with Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer with 20 grand slam singles titles. With Djokovic absent, Nadal went on to win the Australian Open, giving him 21 major singles titles – the most all-time in men’s tennis.

When the BBC asked Djokovic, “Ultimately, are you prepared to forgo the chance to be the greatest player to ever picked up a racquet statistically because you feel so strongly about this jab?”, he said, “Yes, I do.”