"99.99% of everything was good" - Tennis Australia CEO doesn't want Djokovic situation to define Australian Open
ATP
Tennis Australia CEO Craig Tiley would prefer if the Novak Djokovic deportation saga was put in the rearview mirror, adding that the rest of the Australian Open has been a huge success.
There was a lot of controversy surrounding Djokovic as he had his visa and medical exemption cancelled upon arrival at the border, which resulted in the Serbian being eventually deported jus one day before he was due to defend his title.
In an interview with Reuters, Tennis Australia chief executive Tiley said “in the lead-in there was meticulous planning. The one major challenge around the Djokovic situation doesn’t define everything that went on because 99.999% of everything was good.
“It has been very challenging and we’re delivering an event in the middle of a very infectious strain. The tennis has been awesome. It’s going to be a really good finish.
“I do have a regret and the regret I have is actually different. The regret is the distraction that this whole scenario in this challenging environment created."
Nonetheless, Tiley believes the focus should be back on tennis, with Tennis Australia hoping to learn from the situation and make improvements for future events.
“We had over 500 players that were here, were ready to play and wanted the focus back on the tennis and wanted the focus to go back on them." said Tiley. "We all wanted to move on and put that behind us so we can focus on the tennis.
“Of course there’s going to be lessons that we can learn but we do that every year. We do a full review after the event which we’ll do again this year. We’ll see what we did well, we’ll see what we could improve as we plan to 2023.”
Growing up in a household where soccer was king, my earliest memories are filled with chants from packed stadiums and the rhythm of a ball being passed across neighborhood streets. But somewhere along the way, the quiet elegance and raw emotion of tennis pulled me in. What began as a curiosity became a lifelong passion; not just for the sport itself, but for the stories it tells: of grit, of heartbreak, of improbable comebacks and human resilience.
As a tennis writer, I bring the observational lens of someone who didn’t grow up in the sport, but fell in love with it as an outsider; a perspective that lets me see both its technical beauty and its emotional depth. Over the years working with TennisUpToDate, I’ve had the privilege of reaching more than 3.5 million readers worldwide, with one of my features ranking among the site’s top three articles.
With a background in storytelling and a creative mind always searching for meaning beyond the scoreboard, I aim to craft narratives that go deeper than results and rankings. Whether it’s a rising star breaking through or a veteran fighting off Father Time, I try to capture the heartbeat behind the headlines.
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