"US Open has been fighting for two years to get exemptions" - Sandgren feels US Open could have done more to let Djokovic play

Saturday, 27 August 2022 at 01:10

Updated at Saturday, 23 November 2024 at 13:22

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byZachary Wimer

Tennys Sandgren is an American tennis player who was very outspoken heading into the 2022 US Open about his support for Novak Djokovic to be allowed to compete at the New York Slam.

For much of this year, the question about Djokovic playing in the United States remained a topic of discussion. He wasn’t able to play at the Sunshine Double earlier this year because he couldn’t enter the country legally.

As an unvaccinated individual, Djokovic couldn’t enter the United States legally, which prevented him from playing. As the pandemic became less of a factor, Djokovic's chances of playing at the US Open rose.

Still, it mostly came down to the government changing their rules of entry or providing him with an exception. Eventually, none of that came true, and Djokovic announced that he would not play at the 2022 US Open, to the dismay of many fans.

One colleague from the ATP Tour who was very vocal about his support for Djokovic to be allowed to play in New York was Tennys Sandgren. The American isn’t vaccinated either, and he found it unreasonable that he could play while Djokovic couldn't simply because he’s a native.

After Djokovic’s announcement of not playing at the US Open, the media reached out to Sandgren to gather his thoughts on the whole situation, and he simply said that the event didn’t fight for Djokovic to be allowed to play.

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Sandgren spoke to L'Equipe and expressed his thoughts about how the USTA acted in the matter of Djokovic's entry to the United States. He lambasted their claim that there was nothing they could do because, according to him, there was, but they simply didn’t want to.

"We didn’t really try. They didn’t try to get an exemption for Novak. For the past two years, they’ve done everything they could to make the tournament happen. They fought hard to make it happen."

"But now, for Novak, their speech is: ‘We have to apply what the government tells us; we can’t do anything.’ It’s not coherent. I know that a player is not more important than a tournament, but it was worth a try, wasn’t it? The US Open has been fighting for two years to get exemptions."