World no. 1 tennis star and holder of 20 Grand Slam singles titles, Novak Djokovic, has been deported from Australia recently for his stand against the corona vaccine and his covering-up activities. His claim about traveling between Serbia and Spain during 14 days before his arrival in Australia, has been found not true, after an investigation by the Australian government. The local government deported him from the country.
This decision came after four days of Djokovic winning a legal battle that freed him from immigration detention at the Melbourne airport. He arrived in Australia in late January 5, but after a few hours border officers canceled his visa and they said that he remained subject to the requirement that everyone entering the country be fully vaccinated. He spent then five days at a hotel for refugees and asylum-seekers, until a judge found that he had been treated unfairly and ordered Djokovic’s release with his visa restored.
Ranked as world No. 1 by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP), Novak Djokovic, born on 22 May 1987, is a Serbian professional tennis player. Who added so many feathers in his cap in his larger-than-life career. Djokovic began his professional career in 2003. At age 20, he disrupted Roger Federer's and Rafael Nadal's streak of 11 consecutive majors to win his first Grand Slam title at the 2008 Australian Open. By 2010, Djokovic also separated himself from the rest of men's tennis to join Federer and Nadal in the Big Three, the group of three players who have dominated men's tennis for more than a decade. In 2011, Djokovic was ranked No. 1 for the first time, winning three out of four majors and a then-season record of five Masters events. He remained the best player in men's tennis for the rest of the decade, leading the tour in major and Masters's titles, and winning four out of his five titles at the ATP Finals, consecutively from 2012 through 2015. After four consecutive year-end finishes at No. 3 through 2010, Djokovic finished No. 1 for six years and No. 2 for three years in the next decade.
He has been No. 1 for a record total of 357 weeks and has finished as ATP Year-End No. 1 on a record seven occasions. He has won a joint record of 20 Grand Slam men's singles titles, including a record nine Australian Open titles. Overall, he has won 86 ATP singles titles, including a record 37 Masters events. Djokovic is the only man in the Open Era to achieve a double career Grand Slam and complete a non-calendar year Grand Slam. He is also the only player to complete, and he has done it twice, the career Golden Masters on the ATP Tour.
Djokovic had another career year in 2015, reaching fifteen consecutive finals, including all four major finals and eight Masters' finals, winning three majors and a season-record of six Masters' events as well as the ATP Finals. The following year, he won the 2016 French Open to complete the first and only non-calendar year Grand Slam in the Open Era and his first career Grand Slam. He became the first man since Rod Laver in 1969 to hold all four major titles at once and the only one in history to do so on three different surfaces.
Djokovic has won the Laureus World Sportsman of the Year award four times (2012, 2015, 2016, 2019), the BBC Sports Personality World Sport Star of the Year award in 2011, and the L'Équipe Champion of Champions award in 2021. He is also a recipient of the Order of St. Sava, the Order of Karađorđe's Star, and the Order of the Republika Srpska.
Djokovic, the former ATP player council president, is also known as an active philanthropist. In 2007, He founded Novak Djokovic Foundation, with the mission to help children from disadvantaged communities to grow up and develop in stimulating and safe environments. His foundation partnered with the World Bank in August 2015 to promote early childhood education in Serbia, and later built 43 schools and supported almost 20,800 children and a thousand families. Also, He has participated in charity matches with the aim of raising funds for the reconstruction of the Avala Tower, as well as to aid victims of the 2010 Haiti earthquake and 2010–11 Queensland floods. For his outstanding work, He was selected as the 2012 Arthur Ashe Humanitarian of the Year, and in August 2015, he was appointed a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador.
After winning the 2014 Rome Masters, Djokovic donated his prize money to the flood victims in Serbia, while his foundation collected another $600,000. Following his 2016 Australian Open victory, Djokovic donated $20,000 to Melbourne City Mission's early childhood education program to help disadvantaged children. After the COVID-19 pandemic spread to Serbia in March 2020, he and his wife announced that they will donate €1 million for the purchase of ventilators and medical equipment to support hospitals and other medical institutions. He also made a donation to Bergamo, Italy‚ one of the worst-affected Italian provinces, as well as to Novi Pazar, Serbia, and North Mitrovica, Kosovo.
But now, he is facing an eclipse of his brightest career in the endorsement world. In view of current development, Djokovic's biggest sponsor company Lacoste has said that it is reviewing the developments during the last two weeks. The deal with Djokovic will be re-examined after this. According to Forbes, Djokovic with a net worth is Rs 1,193 crore earned around Rs 224 crore from sponsorship deals in 2021, is the 46th highest-paid player in the world. Djokovic has not only been out of the Australian Open due to a lack of clarity regarding the Corona vaccination, but France has also shown a similar attitude regarding the upcoming French Open. If he does not play Grand Slam tournaments like Wimbledon and US Open, then his financial future is sure to be badly affected and he may face termination for his 'anti-wax-poster boy' image.
Djokovic, a role model for his people, holds so many interesting beliefs apart from opposing vaccination, these include a gluten-free diet, alternative medicines, positive thinking impacts on the composition of food and water, healing powers of four pyramid-like hills in a small Bosnian town, etc. He also believes that telekinesis and telepathy are “gifts from this higher-order, the source, the god, whatever, that allows us to understand the higher power and higher-order in ourselves”. Let’s hope and pray, that the last one shall work effectively in his own case and he would emerge stronger soon.