Novak Djokovic Won't Play Miami Open According to Tournament Director
ATP
Novak Djokovic's 2023 season started well, but it's starting to turn into a nightmare, as he hasn't been allowed to compete on the ATP Tour in recent weeks.
Djokovic started the year by winning the title in Adelaide. He then followed up on it with his 10th Australian Open trophy. After that, he played in Dubai, but he wasn't able to continue competing during the Sunshine Double.
First, he had to withdraw from the Indian Wells Open, which is a tournament Djokovic has won five times in his career. Now, it seems that he won't play at the Miami Open either. He triumphed in Miami six times.
The Miami Open tournament director, James Blake, recently spoke to Tennis Channel about the situation. Obviously, for Blake and the tournament, having Djokovic present is important, as he helps to sell the tickets.
However, according to Blake, they did "all they could." That included even talking to the government. Still, ultimately, it was not possible to allow the Serbian player to compete in Miami.
“Obviously, we’re one of the premier tournaments in the world, we’d like to have the best players that can play. We did all that we could. We tried to talk to the government, but that’s out of our hands."
The Indian Wells Open tournament director, Tommy Haas, also tried his best to make it possible for Djokovic to compete, but ultimately, like Blake, he wasn't successful, which is why it's not confirmed that the Serbian player will miss the entire Sunshine Double.
"Same result that he had in Indian Wells, where I know [fellow tournament director] Tommy Haas did as much as he could. We tried to get Novak Djokovic to be allowed to get an exemption, but that wasn't able to happen."
"We’d love to have him, and he’s our greatest champion. Unfortunately, that’s way above my pay grade."
