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Australian Open tournament director Craig Tiley praised his staff for the job they have done amid the backlash over the Novak Djokovic medical exemption. Djokovic announced on Tuesday he was granted a medical exemption for the Australian Open.
Djokovic landed in Melbourne on January 5 but then he was detained at the Melbourne Airport for nine hours before he was told his visa cancelled. Djokovic was then taken to an immigrant hotel and he is awaiting for his visa hearing -- that is set for Monday.
A leaked video published by the News Corp showed Tiley praising his staff. “There’s a lot of finger-pointing going on and a lot of blaming going on, but I can assure you our team has done an unbelievable job and have done everything they possibly could according to all the instructions that they have been provided," Tiley said in the leaked video, as quoted on Sportskeeda.
Tennis Australia not talking too much about Djokovic
“We’ve chosen at this point not to be very public with it and simply because there is a pending lawsuit related to entry into Australia. Once that has run its course, we’ll be able to share more with you,” Tiley said.
Tennis Australia released a statement in which they deny misleading players about medical exemption criteria. "We have always been consistent in our communications to players that vaccination is the best course of action - not just as the right thing to do to protect themselves and others, but also as the best course of action to ensure they could arrive in Australia.
We reject completely that the playing group was knowingly misled," the statement to local media read. "Informing players they could get into the country on a medical exemption was taken from the Smart Traveller website that Greg Hunt (Health Minister) directly referred us to."