Novak Djokovic Welcomed Home as Hero for Fighting ‘Corona-Circus’
Novak Djokovic—poster child for the unvaccinated—landed in his native Serbia Monday morning to a hero’s welcome with fans gathered at the airport waving the national flag and cheering: “You are our champion, Novak! We love you, Nole!” as the world number one tennis player touched down after being deported from Australia over his anti-vax stance. “I think he entered history as a hero, as a man and as a fighter against this evil which is called corona-circus,” Marko Strugalovic, 60, told Reuters at Belgrade airport. “Nole, you are a king, you are an emperor, Nole is the greatest legend walking the earth, he is a living saint.”
On the eve of the Australian Open, for which top-seeded star should have been preparing to defend his ninth Australian Open title, he was instead on a red-eye flight from Melbourne to Dubai en route to Belgrade with a whole lot of sports journalists who hastily booked tickets to get close to him.
In Serbia, the president lit up the Belgrade Tower with the national colors and his nickname “Nole.” An hour before he touched down, France’s Sports Authority announced a vaccine mandate for all foreign athletes, meaning his hopes to compete in the French Open may now hinge on whether or not he agrees to finally get vaccinated against COVID-19.