Novak Djokovic responds to ‘angry’ Australians making him a ‘villain’ ahead of Aus Open | Tennis | Sport

Djokovic’s second appeal was not successful as it was ruled his presence would “excite anti-vax sentiment” in the country, and he was deported on the eve of the 2022 Australian Open. Looking back on the ordeal a year later, the 35-year-old confessed that he felt as though he was turned into a villain despite following the rules at the time.

He continued: “I was really drawn into a storm in media worldwide that was related to anything to do with Covid and the vaccine. All of a sudden I became the villain of the world which was obviously a terrible position to be in as an athlete, as someone that is looking to obviously thrive in their own area, in their own so to say direction of life and profession. But that’s something that I guess I had to learn how to handle.

“Everything got out of hand and then I was labelled as this or that. It was so big in the media that I just could not fight that, I didn’t even want to get into that. I obviously wanted to stay here and play tennis, but at some point with the amount of craziness going around I just wanted to get out and go back home.”