"The situation is not good" says a concerned Novak Djokovic on Australian Open hard quarantine

Novak Djokovic gave an interview to Serbian newspaper Blic last week and he expressed concern over quarantine rules at the Australian Open.

The situation in Australia is rather fluid with many different streams of information presenting very different outcomes. The only thing missing as of now is clarity on what the actual rules will be and for players that is not a good situation. Novak Djokovic agreed with that during his interview while also raising concern over hard quarantine rules that seem to wait for certain players upon arrival:

“The main problem is that if you’re on a plane with a person who is (Covid-19) positive, whether they’re vaccinated or not, you automatically (have) to stay in your room for 14 days. That happened to Viktor Troicki in January this year. Not only him but 70 players had to be in (hard) quarantine. I’ve talked to a lot of players and that’s remained a bad memory for everyone."

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A similar sentiment was expressed by Victoria Azarenka earlier in the month with the Belarussian player being vocally opposed to any hard quarantine for any players. The former grand slam winner reasoned with people explaining how negatively it affects high-performance athletes like tennis players. Djokovic echoed a similar sentiment saying:

“Some of us had the quarantine in which we could train. But if a person can’t train… to put a professional athlete in that kind of (hard) quarantine where he can’t leave the room and then expect him to play at a certain level. Not to mention the increased risk of injury, of which there were many, including me, at this year’s Australian Open."

He finished up with: “So I don’t know if I’ll go to Australia. I don’t know what’s going on. Currently, the situation isn’t good at all."