Australian court rejects appeal to delay Djokovic's case till Wednesday

Novak Djokovic's visa hearing will go ahead on Monday after an Australian court rejected the government's appeal to delay the hearing until Wednesday.

As of now, Djokovic's case will go ahead before a judge on Monday. The final decision should come about at 00:00 CET when the date shifts from Sunday to Monday. There was an initiative to move that to Wednesday however on Sunday, Judge Anthony Kelly rejected the submission by home affairs minister Karen Andrews to delay the hearing.

Still, the judge left the government with the option of making another application to delay on Monday. The world number one has been detained at an immigration facility in Melbourne since Thursday morning after his visa was cancelled following scrutiny of the medical exemption he had secured to travel to the first tennis major of the year.

According to his legal team, Djokovic - who is hoping to win his 21st Grand Slam title - was also provided with a letter from the Chief Medical Officer of Tennis Australia recording he had a medical exemption from Covid vaccination. It's claimed that the exemption certificate was "provided by an Independent Expert Medical Review panel commissioned by Tennis Australia", and that "the decision of that panel had been reviewed and endorsed by an independent Medical Exemptions Review Panel of the Victorian State Government".

Djokovic's lawyers added that he was granted an "Australian Travel Declaration" because he was told by the authorities that [he met] the requirements for a quarantine-free arrival into Australia". Djokovic's lawyers will have up to two hours to present their case from 10am on Monday while the government department gets two hours to present its defence from 3pm the Federal Circuit and Family Court ruled.