Novak Djokovic will be free to defend his Wimbledon title after the All England Club confirmed Covid vaccinations will not be needed to compete in this year’s Championships. He will also be allowed to play in Paris. MailOnline has more.
There are no plans for any coronavirus restrictions this time after two disrupted years of the London Grand Slam.
Twenty-time Slam winner Djokovic, who has made clear he is not vaccinated against the virus, was barred from playing at the Australian Open back in January and booted out of the country by the Government.
Djokovic, 34, will also be able to compete at the French Open after organisers in Paris dropped all Covid restrictions.
The Serbian has won the Wimbledon men’s singles title six times, including last year when he defeated Italian Matteo Berretini in straight sets.
The 2020 Wimbledon Championships was cancelled amid the pandemic, while the 2021 edition took place in front of restricted crowds up until the semi-finals.
This year’s tournament will take place between June 27th and July 10th.
Credit to Novak for standing his ground despite huge pressure to conform with unreasonable medical demands. Hopefully this will be the end of impediments put in his way, and the wider movement towards the removal of all discriminatory measures against the unvaccinated will continue apace.
Worth reading in full.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
That’s good, obviously. Should never have been an issue, equally obviously.
Now what about the collective punishment of Russians?
Politicisation of sport is a bad thing, whether it’s enforced anti-racist dogmas, BLM-worship, or cancel culture.
They really are the worst kind of virtue signalling tossers. No other tennis tournament in the world has done this. I’ve got tickets for Wimbledon and Queens, was looking forward to it after boycotting them during covid because of the restrictions.
This kind of virtue signalling cancel culture seems now to be endemic in the cultures of the US sphere, with simply no grasp of the need for tolerance of dissent in any sphere of activity.
I have a pair of tickets for Men’s Final through the Ballot, but given their disgusting announcement about banning Russian and Belorussian players, I’m sorely tempted to ask for a refund. The only thing stopping me is the ch ce the AELTC might backtrack.
Ive already written to them to say they can keep their tickets until they reverse their stance. You could even label this as racist as they are there representing themselves and not their country.
You’ve got tickets through the ballots? There is no ballot! I am a member of LTA and receive daily updates but none about the ballot. Have I missed the boat? Oy vey.
You lucky duck! Hope the weather is kind to both tournaments!
I hope he gets a standing ovation when he walks on the court for his first game
Despite his loss in Monte Carlo he did receive a very warm welcome in the principality. Granted it is also his home.
I’ll go further than that – for the first time in his career, and I never thought I’d hear myself say this, but for his principled stance I hope he wins the effing thing and makes a speech bringing some publicity to what is going on when sue thing shoves her mic under his nose after the trophy presentation
We need the save cash. Please support the campaign here.
24,000 people wrote to their MP, demanding the government follow through with its promised legislation to #ProtectCash.
https://twitter.com/WhichMoney/status/1518862782145331202
We urge @JohnGlenUK to protect communities who rely on cash and face-to-face banking services, by ensuring this legislation is included in the Queen’s Speech.
Stand in the Park Sundays from 10am – make friends & keep sane
Wokingham Howard Palmer Gardens
(Cockpit Path car park free on Sunday)
Sturges Rd RG40 2HD
Bracknell
South Hill Park, Rear Lawn, RG12 7PA
Telegram http://t.me/astandintheparkbracknell
The good thing is old people still need access to cash because many are behind when it comes to Smart Phones etc. I know in old people’s homes they will rectify that for them but many oldies are still independent.
OT. A question: If the mRNA vaccine effectiveness degrades over time, eventually becoming negative, is that just for Covid, or does it mean that the whole immune system is becoming less effective, leaving the person more open to other diseases as well?
My money would be on the latter – from what little understanding I have of the human immune system it is a dynamic, highly complex multi-layered structure with many biological processes that have evolved over millions of years to detect and respond to a variety of threats to the human body … other than the brain it is the most complex biological system in the human body and in my mind this endlessly dabbling with something so complex can’t be good for one’s health.
My totally unscientific understanding is that the vaccine does for your immunity what Peter Stormare did for Steve Buscemi in Fargo.
There might be something left at the end, but that something won’t be good for much.
Good question.
Answer I have no bloody idea
From what I have read i think the very simple answer to your question is yes.
Nat immunity leaves your immune system intact.
“Vaxx immunity” – if you can even call it that, not only wanes over time, but requires regular “boosting” and over time harms the innate immune system to the point where it barely functions, so that something trivial like a cold they would formerly have fought off with ease could kill that person.
And to think that the people who devised these jabs received awards.
I would love to see Novak Djokovic announce his withdrawal from Wimbledon out of solidarity with the Russian male and female players who have been banned from participating. It would be a big personal sacrifice but it would show him to be not only a great champion of sport but also a great champion of human rights.
I disagree. Novak has done enough and needs to press on with his personal goal of being the greatest ever tennis player (winning the most majors). He should not be expected to continue foregoing his own career.
With you on that, Hawkins.
Perhaps he could play in the final with a f##king great big Z on his shirt?
Or zzzzzzz, reflecting just how boring a sport tennis is.
Televized sport is just bread and cicruses for the proles.
Nobody withdrew from the Australian Open even though Djokovic supported them in the previous year when a lot of them were subjected to a 14-day quarantine without training!!!! When he requested the training ‘privileges’ for the other players the world accused him of being spoilt and demanding. The press was very unkind to him without knowing the facts.
Some players like Nadal and Murray criticised Djokovic’s principled stance for not getting vaccinated, and most kept quiet. At times like these you do find out who your true freiends are.
So, no heroics from Djokovic this time, please.
Go knock ’em all out the park, Novak.
Are you having an election over there, too?
Spot on! Yes, but the tournament is too late for the local election.
Hero.
Strange there was no mention of the US open.
Under current rules he will not be allowed to enter America to take part, as “full vaccination” is required. Unless they change them before the end of August, which they are showing no signs of with the CDC/mask debacle.
Biden probably forgot it was time to update them or napped through the signing.
Biden is biding his time. Or rather, he is so confused he doesn’t know if tennis isn’t baseball, or the whole world is an imaginary friend.
Is it likely anyone from Australia will compete at Wembley? Their government has decreed all their tennis players have to have the security blanket of the crapvax, haven’t they? Most probably they wont be allowed to co-mingle with the unclean, unjabbed.
I wonder if the vaccine fan boy Rafael Nadal will be back from his heart pain and breathing problems?
Should have listened to Novax.
Think he had a rib strain, had someone in the Gym have that, though at first he thought he was having a heart attack with the location just under the ribs. I have experiences that type of strain before. I deducted that if I’ve just been through an intensive circuit workout and there was no pain, it probably isn’t heart related.
The “rib strain” main-stream-media story is highly likely a cover for vaccine injury; this is because after being jabbed many people’s bodies are one big blood clot and they are having to breathe much more vigorously (especially while exercising) causing the rib bruising, their lungs are required to work so much harder causing stress fractures on the rib cage. It is not from an external impact like from a car seat belt in an auto accident or some such. For a once super-fit athlete like Nadal it didn’t just happen because one day recently he started playing harder or more intensively – it was highly likely due to the jabs. Not So Rare.
He was quoted as saying that it was painful to breathe and after the match was diagnosed with a “stress fracture of the rib”.
If it is a jab injury I wouldn’t expect to see him playing in any of the big tournaments over the summer. Will he play the French open? doubtful – he is missing a lot of the early clay court season tournaments which he normally wins in the run up to the FO.
Will we ever see him play professionally ever again? perhaps not.
What surprises me is that if it is a jab injury then he had the clot shot for real, as opposed to a “safe” saline jab which I would have thought someone considered to be a member of the elite would have had access to.
Man of honour.
Just as big a disgrace that Russians and Belarussians should be excluded.
Every single US sports person is more worthy of global bans due to US’ 80 year policy of committing genocides to enforce hegemony.
What Putin has done is pissing in the wind in comparison…
Hope he wins everything.And hope Bedwetter Murray falls on his muzzled mug on the first day.
He reminds me of Prince Harry, though not quite as bad.
I know a lot of Brits support Murray, but for me, a new immigrant to the UK, Murray doesn’t represent British sport. HIs snarling and moaning on court, his rough and unshaven appearance, the negative attitude etc make him one of the worst players to watch.
Excellent!
Good, sport is one area where drugs however administered are a big No No
Unless you are a man who wants to compete against women: then it’s quite OK to take drugs. Apparently.
I will be cheering him on ..
Were people really set to be banned from cheering for him if he hadn’t been banned from the Australian open? People were ordered to take off Djokovich t-shirts weren’t they?
That I am not sure, but a woman was banned from wearing a T shirt supporting the missing / elusive Peng Shuai. The tournament blamed the security after the uproar, but security guards take order from the tournament!
I converted from Federer to Djokovic this year. He suddenly became absolutely gorgeous. Sigh.
Me too. I think the who anti Djokovic scenario was whipped up by the media, and other diehard Fed/Dal fans, who were upset by Djokovic setting the apple cart when he started winning slams at the expense of their heros. I was worried someone would do a ‘Steffi Graff-Seles’ stabbing on Djokovic because they hated the new comer beating their men.
I hope the lad wins it.
Me too
On the banning of Russian and Belarusian tennis players, Ian Hewitt, Chairman of the All England Club of highly trained virtue experts, commented: “We recognise that this is hard on the individuals affected, and it is with sadness that they will suffer for the actions of the leaders of the Russian regime”.
We are all immediately reminded of the times when the tennis authorities took similar action against other players who were guilty of being born in the wrong country and were made to “suffer for the actions of their leaders”. Well, not quite.
In the days before WW1 hostilities broke out, three Germans were allowed to play on at Wimbledon, one of them (Otto Froitzheim, who was later engaged to Leni Riefenstahl) losing a five-set final.
In 1939, after Hitler had already engorged on Czechoslovakia, Nazi tennis sensation Henner Henkel made it to the Wimbledon semifinals.
US tennis players Arthur Ashe, Pancho Gonzales and Stan Smith were not banned from Wimbledon because of U.S. carpet-bombing, directed by war criminal Henry Kissinger, in Cambodia and Vietnam that killed half a million civilians.
Andy Roddick, James Black, Andre Agassi, the Williams sisters, and Britain’s own Tim Henman were not banned from the 2003 Wimbledon tournament because of the ‘shock and awe’ bombing campaign of Iraq based on WMD fabrications concocted by Bush, Cheney and Blair.
Seems like some some wars (the West’s, including NATO provocations) are more worthy of support than others (Russia’s).
Excellent post Phil.
Why on earth should a professional sportsman be prohibited from plying his trade purely because he happens to have been born in a country which the virtue signalling MSM say is fighting an illegal war?
If there was a team of them trying to fly the national flag and play under it it would be different. This isn’t a team competition and no one is playing for their country, per se. The ban, like so much else these days, stinks.
I trust that no further invitations will EVER be extended to Patrick Vallance to sit in the Royal Box. It makes a mockery of the tournament and should be the basis for the strongest representations possible by the ATP, the WTA and all sane sportsfolk worldwide,
This man is a legend for his tennis but more importantly standing strong for what he believes in, unlike a number of others I can think of.
I am glad The Daily Sceptic chose to use No-Vaxx, rather than the demeaning Anti-vaxx to describe such a champion. Australia knows its policy doesn’t work but in typical Aussie macho style refused to back down from a discriminatory position in its sad deportation saga. Win or lose, Djokovic is our hero of principle and honesty.
I truly hope he wins!!!
And let’s see if Rafael Nadal will be even fit to participate, after his jab heart problem.