The Novak Djokovic vaccine saga continues to make headlines in the tennis world after he was a late withdrawal from the recent Indian Wells Masters 1000 in the USA.
Former Australian Open doubles winner Chanda Rubin has strongly suggested that Djokovic should be giving tournament officials much more of an advanced notice, especially with plenty of ramifications that can occur.
In a betting sense, a late withdrawal of a top seed can significantly alter the tournament odds and outright markets. As a result, Australian betting sites and other websites need to quickly adjust before their customers can take advantage of better odds for some of the top favorites.
Sometimes this will mean that the betting markets are suspended until they can be recalculated mainly for fairness and integrity reasons. So this isn’t an ideal experience for any user that just wants to place a bet on the tournament outright winner, for example.
This isn’t the first time that Djokovic’s vaccine status became a problem before an important tennis tournament. Heading into the 2022 Australian Open, Djokovic was given special clearance to play in the tournament and flew into Melbourne to prepare. However, a few days before the Aussie Open started, the decision was overturned by the Australian Federal Court and the Serb was forced to fly home.
Luckily, this doesn’t overshadow what was a fantastic tournament. Australian fans enjoyed the Barty Party for the last time after her recent and unexpected retirement. Meanwhile, Nick Kyrgios and Thanasi Kokkinakis took doubles excitement to a new level with their surprise title. To top it off, Rafael Nadal and Daniil Medvedev played in an epic five-set final that lasted into the early hours of the morning.
Australia has set the precedence and it will be interesting to see how the other Grand Slams–the French Open, Wimbledon, and U.S. Open follow suit–in 2022. At this stage, France is going to allow unvaccinated tennis players to participate in the French Open. But this decision could change at any minute if there are more cases in the country before the tournament begins. The fact that Djokovic couldn’t travel to the USA for Indian Wells or Miami places his status for the U.S. Open later in the year in jeopardy.
It’s also an issue for the tournament draw, as removing one of the top seeds before play begins isn’t ideal. There is simply no time to perform a re-draw and change the seedings. There are also qualifying matches that need to be played in a timely fashion. A top seed withdrawing late can be a great advantage to players that are on the same side of the draw. They can get an easier passage to the final as they face weaker opponents during the early rounds.
If you’re not aware of who Rubin is , she’s a retired American tennis player that reached the top 10 during her career. Her most successful year came in 1996 when she reached the semifinals of the Australian Open in the singles draw and she won the Australian Open doubles final in the same year. She is now a commentator and presenter with the Tennis Channel, where she made those comments about Djokovic in March.
Well it really should not be left to the player to withdraw in the first place especially if the rule states that you ought to be vaccinated to participate!! Unless it’s a case where non vaccinated players can play, then that’s a different story bcoz the player may end up getting sick just before play begins and therefore it can create an issue. But this vaccine issue should really not be an issue in the sense that many top players withdraw from tournaments from time to time citing injury or illness and it doesn’t necessarily cause any mayhem, so I don’t c y a player’s vaccine status should create an issue if the rules are explicit!!! So case in point, I would expect Novak to participate in the French despite his status bcoz he is not required to be vaccinated, whereas at Wimby, his clearance to play is not yet known as they have not stated their policy while in the US he will most likely not be allowed to play bcoz of New York”s strict vaccination policy. There, the onus will not be on him to withdraw bcoz he won’t be able to enter the country to begin with!!! And even if he could, he still won’t be able to play bcoz the policy is clear and he would not be able to participate, and therefore, should not be included in the draw! End of!!
On the other hand, I find this whole vaccine thing is getting a bit old!! Novak has a right not to be vaccinated but the rules should be quite explicit as to whether or not he can play, and should not be left to him to withdraw thereby leaving the process all up in the air! In this case I’m not sure if I can really blame him bcoz policies should be explicit and not have loopholes for ppl to exploit. By now Novak should know which tournaments he is able to play thereby keeping the process transparent and honest!! Sigh!!