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Novak Djokovic’s Australian visa has again been cancelled just days before the start of the Australian Open.
On Friday, the Australian immigration minister, Alex Hawke, exercised a personal power to cancel Djokovic’s visa, likely to result in the world No 1’s deportation and putting him out of contention for the grand slam tournament barring an against-the-odds court victory.
Novak Djokovic’s preparations for the Australian Open continued on Wednesday as the question of his presence in the country remained unresolved. Australia’s immigration minister, Alex Hawke, continues to deliberate over whether or not he should revoke Djokovic’s visa.
On Wednesday afternoon, Djokovic returned for his third practice at Melbourne Park since he was released from immigration detention. With a small contingent of media present, Djokovic trained with the Australian youngster Tristan Schoolkate and he continued to ease himself back into practice, working through a series of drills.
Marton Fucsovics: ‘I don’t think Novak has the right to be here’
Djokovic may have put incorrect information on travel form
Andy Murray has welcomed Novak Djokovic’s release from immigration detentionbut he anticipates the men’s world No 1 will have a number of questions to answer in the coming days if he remains in Australia.
Djokovic spent his first full day of freedom focusing on tennis matters as he took to Melbourne’s Rod Laver Arena behind closed doors for much-needed practice after the best part of five days spent in a hotel room fighting the cancellation of his visa.
‘Thank you all for standing with me’, tweets men’s tennis No 1
Mother says player was ‘subjected to torture and harassment’
Novak Djokovic ended an extraordinary day in Melbourne with his Australian Open dreams revived – for now – after winning an appeal against his visa cancellation. But his battle to stay in the country may yet have another twist in the tale, with the Australian government threatening to revoke his entry visa for a second time.
The circumstances have left the the world’s No 1 men’s tennis player, who spent four days in an immigration detention centre after his medical exemption from strict coronavirus vaccination rules was denied by border officials, in limbo days before he is due to begin the defence of his title next Monday.
Lawyers for the Australian government have rejected tennis star’s claim he was given assurances a medical exemption would allow him to enter the country for the Australian Open as case heard in court
Judge ‘agitated’ by issue of why Australian government did not accept medical exemption
A bid by the Morrison government to delay Novak Djokovic’s visa hearing by two days has been rejected by the federal circuit court.
In an order, published on Sunday, judge Anthony Kelly rejected the move which would have delayed the hearing until Wednesday – after Tennis Australia’s stated deadline to include the world number one in the Australian Open draw.
Tennis star accuses Australian government officials of unfairly pressuring him to accept visa cancellation, documents show
Novak Djokovic relied on a weeks-old Covid infection to justify his vaccine-free travel to Australia and was given a green light by the federal government just days before arriving in the country, court documents reveal.
Court documents associated with Djokovic’s challenge to his visa cancellation were published by the federal circuit court late Saturday, ahead of an urgent hearing on Monday.
Figures from across the tennis world have weighed in on the controversy surrounding Novak Djokovic's entry – and now hotel detention – in Australia, as the world number one awaits a court ruling on his entry visa after his vaccine exemption was revoked.
The 34-year-old is being held in isolation at the Park Hotel in Carlton, Melbourne, awaiting the outcome of an appeal against the decision to cancel the reigning Australian Open champion's entry visa and deport him.
Players offered a range of views about Djokovic's predicament. 'In some way, I feel sorry for him. But at the same time, he knew the conditions since a lot of months ago, so he makes his own decision,' said the Spanish player Rafael Nadal
The Australian Open could be thrown into further disarray with the home affairs minister, Karen Andrews, revealing other international players and officials are being investigated after Novak Djokovic’s visa was cancelled.
Andrews also defended the government’s treatment of Djokovic, who is in a Melbourne detention hotel waiting for a legal hearing, rejecting his family’s accusation the government was “keeping him captivity”.
Novak Djokovic flew into Melbourne airport on Wednesday night planning to defend his Australian Open title. Instead, the World No 1 is being held in a quarantine hotel and is set to be deported tonight after a remarkable series of events led to his visa being cancelled.
Novak Djokovic is awaiting his Australian Open fate in a Melbourne immigration hotel as the world No 1 mounts a legal challenge against Australia’s decision to cancel his visa.
Djokovic’s lawyers succeeded in a bid to stop him from being deported on Thursday with a full hearing in the federal circuit court now scheduled for Monday.
Novak Djokovic’s attempts to compete at the Australian Open this month were thrown into fresh doubt on Wednesday amid a spiralling outcry over his controversial “medical exemption” agreed by the tournament’s organisers.
The whereabouts of the world No 1 and reigning Australian champion were in doubt after he was held up at passport control at Tullamarine airport in Melbourne, the host city of the tournament, for several hours late at night.
Australian Open organisers say ‘all players, participants and staff’ must be vaccinated as Djokovic, who has not revealed his vaccination status, is included in tournament draw
Tennis Australia has hit back at suggestions it is seeking to exploit a “loophole” in border entry rules so unvaccinated players can compete in the upcoming Australian Open, as it included Novak Djokovic in the draw for the January grand slam.
Djokovic’s inclusion in the tournament draw, which was released on Wednesday afternoon, followed intense speculation about the world No 1’s ability to enter the country.
Srdjan Djokovic equates vaccine mandate to ‘blackmail’
All players at staff at grand slam in Melbourne must be jabbed
Novak Djokovic is unlikely to play at the Australian Open if rules on Covid-19 vaccinations are not relaxed, the world No 1’s father, Srdjan Djokovic, said.
Organisers of the year’s first grand slam have said that all players will have to be vaccinated to take part.
Tournament chief says all players must be vaccinated to compete
Craig Tiley says 80% of players are now vaccinated
World No 1 Novak Djokovic and all other players will have to be vaccinated against Covid-19 to compete in the Australia Open next January, tournament chief Craig Tiley said on Saturday.
Djokovic has declined to disclose whether he is vaccinated and said that he would wait until Tennis Australia revealed the health protocols before he made a decision about playing at Melbourne Park.
State leader Daniel Andrews says it is ‘the only fair thing to do’
Prime minister earlier said unvaccinated players could quarantine
The Victorian government will not apply for exemptions for unvaccinated players travelling from overseas to appear at next year’s Australian Open, the state’s premier has said.
Daniel Andrews said refusing to consider exemptions for players like Novak Djokovic, who has repeatedly refused to reveal his vaccination status, was “the only fair thing to do”, given fans and people working at the tournament are required to be double-jabbed.
First set: Hsieh Su-wei 1-2 Naomi Osaka* (denotes server) Osaka holds again without too much ado, to love, and we’re still on serve early on this opening set. Remember, Osaka has the edge on head-to-heads: the Japanese leads 4-1 in the pair’s previous five meetings. But, the results mask how close those matches were.
First set: Hsieh Su-wei* 1-1 Naomi Osaka (denotes server) Hsieh, who has never before been this deep at a grand slam, is known for her unpredictability and she throws up a bit of funky stuff on her first service game today. All good for the Tawainese so far.
Victoria will enter a “circuit-breaker” five-day lockdown from Saturday in an attempt to “prevent a third wave”, Daniel Andrews has announced.
The premier said on Friday afternoon the government would impose a snap lockdown from midnight because the “hyper-infectivity” and speed of a UK variant outbreak had created a “very real challenge”.
NSW and Victoria report no new local Covid cases as hotel quarantine worker in Melbourne diagnosed with UK variant. Follow all the latest news and updates, live
On the vaccine distribution in Australia, Paul Kelly says it is still on track for the first injections to be happening before the end of February, but will not put an exact timeline on it.
The aim will be to get 20 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine before the end of this year, in weekly deliveries. Kelly said the AstraZeneca and Novovax vaccines will also be used if and when they are approved by the TGA:
We don’t want a lot of vaccines sitting out in warehouses, so we will be looking to roll out particularly for those priority populations that people will know about now, as soon as we can. But then will be going back to the same population, those people, to give them a second dose. That is really important.
We will await the TGA advice in relation to AstraZeneca but some of the information that has been coming up in the last few weeks is that it may actually be a longer interval for that second dose.”
Australia’s chief medical officer, Prof Paul Kelly, is also moving to reassure people about the effectiveness of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine.
He said it was still in the process of being approved by the Therapeutics Goods Administration, and talked down claims it was less effective in treating the South African variant of the virus.
I just want to make a very clear statement about people taking small amounts of information quickly, without looking at it carefully. And making conclusions. At the moment, I can absolutely say, and this may change in future, and we will be nimble in the way we look at that information, and putting that into our planning, but at the moment, there’s no evidence anywhere in the world AstraZeneca effectiveness against severe infection is affected by any of these variants of concern.
And that is the fact. What we have at the moment is a small group of people in a study not yet peer-reviewed or published in South Africa where there was an effect on the mild or moderate disease in relation to that variant of concern in that country. But there were no severe infections in any of the people that received the vaccine in regards to any of those types of the virus.”
Melbourne quarantine hotel worker tests positive to virus; NSW issues alert over returned traveller case. This blog is now closed.
That’s where we will leave the live blog for Monday. Here’s what you might have missed today:
AAP has the latest on Covid restrictions in Western Australia:
Face masks are mandatory for teachers and secondary students, a precaution that’s part of transition arrangements for Perth and Peel, after the five-day lockdown sparked by a hotel quarantine security guard’s infection.