The American tennis player put Djokovic to shame. “Who is more faithful to their beliefs?”

– Tennys Sandgren was always an anti-vaccine, he never hid it. According to his belief, the American, two-time Australian Open quarterfinalist, will not travel to Melbourne this year, reports the French portal tennisactu.net.

He did not ask for release

96th in the world today, Sandgren was in the top eight at the Australian Open in 2018 and 2020. This year he has decided to withdraw from the Australian event due to the COVID-19 vaccination requirement. As Ben Rothenberg of the New York Times reported: “Sandgren told me that he did not try to apply for the special waiver because he felt he did not meet any of the conditions indicated.”

Sandgren officially withdrew from the event on Tuesday. The Belarusian Egor Gerasimov (113th ATP) jumped into the main bracket of the tournament. At exactly the same time, Novak Djoković stated on Instagram: “I’ve had a fantastic time with my loved ones, and today I’m going on a trip to Australia. With special authorization. “That means it has been qualified as” medical exception. “

Djoković exception

Djoković has in the past questioned the validity of vaccinations, not least for the coronavirus. He then backed out of it, but added that he needed to consider whether he wanted to get the COVID-19 vaccine. In the end, he probably didn’t take it. Australian authorities do not want to disclose which premise made the unvaccinated Djoković admitted to the tournament.

What are the grounds for issuing such a permit? According to the regulations, it includes:

• “Serious adverse event” associated with the first dose
• acute medical condition
• inflammatory heart disease (in the last six months).
• pregnancy

The decision of the Australian Open authorities will trigger a wave of criticism. After all, it concerns a country whose inhabitants have been in exceptionally hard lockdown for months. – Allowing a Serb to compete in the Australian Open is like spitting in the face of the people of Australia –

The mischievous will say that even if Sandgren did apply for a special permit, there is no certainty that the organizers of the Australian Open would grant him. The American has only one ATP rank title to his name, the highest in the ranking was 41, he did not win 20 Grand Slam titles like Novak Djoković. “And who do you think is more faithful to your convictions now: or Sandgren?” – Adam Romer from the Tenisklub magazine asked on Twitter.

The American tennis player embarrassed the Serb. He set his views higher than potential success in the tournament. He disagreed with the rule that he had to get vaccinated to compete in an Australian tournament and simply quit the event.