By Ben Kerrigan-
An irresponsible Serbian politician Vesna Pesic has claimed that Novak Djokovic is ‘uneducated’ in a scathing rant after taking issue with his firm stance on being vaccinated against COVID-19. The 35-year-old is expected to miss out on competing at this year’s US Open, which is set to get underway at the end of this month, as a result of his refusal to be jabbed.
Vesna Pesic tweeted: “As a well-known Djokovic cheerleader, I wonder when(means what..ungrammatical) he is protecting his body from the vaccine at the age of 35?”When you infect the brain, not much is good. It seems that those pyramids in Bosnia did not help him.”
Pesic’s comments were ill judged and reckless because the decision to vaccinate or not is highly subjective and was a topic of much debate during the heights of the pandemic. Her comments are reflective of many of the poor judgements made by politicians all over the world in various situations. She appears to be jumping on the bandwagon.
The Serb’s failure to get the vaccine has evoked plenty of criticism from fans, players and pundits alike and was responsible for his unceremonious deportation from Melbourne on the eve of this year’s Australian Open back in January. Djokovic has had many fans support him and try to urge the White House to change their rule on vaccination, to enable him to participate in the U.S open. Djokavic was deported from Australia early in the year, following controversies surrounding his vaccination status and the fact he had mixed with people after testing positive for Covid-19 . The tennis player said in one of the situations that he did not want to disappoint a journalist for an interview. The revelation incensed many of the Australian public who had made enormous sacrifices through lockdowns and had been vaccinated.
Djokavic said he felt it was up to him what he put in his body, and he has decided not to be vaccinated. The tennis player received lots of criticism from fellow tennis players and journalists.
A number of public figures have also spoken out in support of Djokovic, who clinched his latest Grand Slam title at Wimbledon by defeating runner-up Nick Kyrgios in the final earlier this year. John McEnroe recently slammed Joe Biden’s government for their hardline stance against unvaccinated foreign travellers by imploring them to allow Djokovic to play at the US Open in spite of the current entry restrictions in place.
“I think it’s BS, I think he should be allowed to play,” said McEnroe on American channel Fox Digital. “My personal opinion is, I’ve been vaccinated, I’ve had a booster shot. That’s up to the individual.
“He’s won a lot more majors than me because he’s dug his heels in and found that will, that very few people in sport have ever found. That’s part of what made him so great, so he sticks to his guns.”
Djokavic was allowed to participate in the French open following the country’s relaxation of its vaccination rules.
Many have criticised the fact that the UK government and the French government have relaxed their vaccination, yet the U.S government has still not relaxed their rules.
The U.S recently relaxed their rules distinguishing, vaccinated people from unvaccinated people, but it has not yet been extended to foreign people.