Australian Open tournament director Craig Tiley recounted the unpleasant experience he endured in the wake of Novak Djokovic's infamous deportation in 2022.
Before the start of the 2022 Australian Open, the tournament was marred by off-court events involving Djokovic, the tournament's most decorated champion, and Australia's immigration authorities. At the time, the world was grappling with the COVID-19 health crisis.
Djokovic entered the country with a medical exemption, certified by the two independent health panels after testing positive for coronavirus just a month before the tournament. He was also unvaccinated against COVID-19 and on grounds of that exemption, he was given the go-ahead to fly to Melbourne.
However, he was detained by the Australian Border Force just hours after his arrival for not satisfying federal coronavirus requirements, and his visa was canceled. A judge was able to restore Djokovic's visa, but only momentarily to enable him to address his exemption issue.
But the Australian government revoked it for a second time on the basis of civil unrest. Djokovic challenged that decision in court, but he was unsuccessful, and he was deported from Australia.
The 10-day saga made global headlines and it had so profound consequences that even Craig Tiley was caught in its storm. Tiley is the CEO of Tennis Australia - the umbrella body vested with the mandate to oversee all tennis activities Down Under, in addition to his role as tournament director of the Australian Open.
Speaking in an episode of the Rock n Roll podcast, Tiley revealed that he was subjected to death threats, likely from irate fans of the Serbian, and had to be guarded by security officials for his safety and wellbeing. He stated that decisions have consequences and was not surprised by criticism.
Tiley garnered massive flak from tennis fans and the wider public for creating the whole mess. One of the independent health panels was commissioned by Tennis Australia which ended up validating Djokovic's exemption. But he leaped into the Serbian's defense and sympathized with him of the whole ordeal.
"Well, I had death threats and had to be under security but I think, again, it’s internal, self-talk and you have a choice on what that self-talk is. If I’m making a difference and making tough decisions, there’s going to be some criticism. You know we’re not running a hotel, we’re not there to please everyone."
"We were in a state where there were 270 days of lockdown. We were the first Major sporting event to fly athletes from around the world into one city. We were still able to deliver the event and the next year, we started the event on the cusp of Omicron, which was the new variant."
"There were a whole bunch of different views at that time. At that point, I felt for Novak you know because he was someone who did what he thought was the right thing to do based on the paperwork that he had in front of them and ended up coming to the country, then being removed by one of the ministers."
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