Novak Djokovic is a profile in selfishness, and sports leaders are failing us all. Novak Djokovic, at least for the time being, has won his case against Australian authorities attempting to revoke the visa that would allow him to compete in the Australia Open, which begins Monday morning in Melbourne -- Sunday evening for U.S. viewers. The moment Djokovic takes the court at Rod Laver Arena, he will be the overwhelming favorite to win his 21st major title, finally, at long last, surpassing both Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal in their exhaustive, historic major title race. He has won the past three Australian Open titles and nine overall.
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Novak Djokovic is a profile
The start of the tennis season in Australia and New Zealand is usually full of optimism and anticipation. The Australian Open is even nicknamed the "Happy Slam" because of the festive energy on the grounds. But in the arena of his greatest dominance, Djokovic now faces heightened distrust and hard feelings, nationally and internationally, in addition to his potential deportation. How Djokovic emerges over the coming weeks and months will have come at the heavy cost of current events: Djokovic detained by Australian border authorities; his admission that he appeared at several events in December apparently having tested positive for COVID-19 days earlier; his continued decision to be indirect about his vaccination status; appearing to receive special treatment the Australian people are denied. Even if the Australian government removes him from the country, the questions of his behavior during a pandemic nevertheless remain. At the moment, Djokovic has lost by winning, the crowning achievement that could await him already tarnished before he hits his first ball of the fortnight.
MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE
On its face, the story is Djokovic. He has cemented his membership within the pandemic's most infamous group -- the anti-vax multimillionaire athlete who behaves as if his fame, wealth and enormous platform to disseminate misinformation place him above the rest of us. Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers and Brooklyn Nets guard Kyrie Irving are also members of the club -- and even Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James, long held as politically conscientious antithesis to his frightened, apolitical generational predecessors, posted Spider-Man memes conflating COVID-19 with the flu. In his own way, Irving has emerged as something of the most principled of the group, unable to play home games at the Barclays Center because of New York City's vaccine mandate. He first responded to the pandemic with disdain, confidently repeating his conspiracy theories as if he possessed knowledge beyond that of mere lifetime health professionals before quietly choosing to not play -- and dealing with the consequences that accompanied his decision.
Rodgers purposely misled the public with an insulting word dance, calling himself "immunized" when asked whether he was vaccinated. In another appearance, Rodgers then trolled his critics, brandishing a copy of Ayn Rand's dystopian 1957 novel "Atlas Shrugged" as some form of harbinger that we live in a time of persecuting society's winners, or as the bible of his invaluable individualism -- or both -- and that as one of those winners, he is the prime victim of a looming nefariousness. Rodgers is nowhere near as clever or interesting as he thinks he is.
While the past 10 years will be remembered for the return of the political athlete, the COVID-19 era has produced a less heroic professional citizen-athlete. Athletes lauded for using their voices to benefit the conditions of others have been replaced by the pandemic-era player beholden completely unto himself -- unburdened by community or responsibility to others, using vaunted platforms to disseminate pseudoscience, to elevate and separate themselves.
These superathlete voices now send a different message -- that they owe nothing because they create so much: revenue and legacy for the suits; pleasure for the watchers; security for their families. They are the value. They are why we watch. In turn, they carry themselves as though they are exempt from our common struggle. While Australians and citizens around the world sacrifice to resume their lifestyles by suffering through the difficult steps of vaccine mandates ostensibly for the long-term greater good, several high-profile athletes have decided the only name that matters is the one on the back of their jerseys.
The Atlases have shrugged. Everyone is on their own.
The easy reflex is to focus on only Djokovic, and scrutiny of him is appropriate. His recklessness has run counter to the leadership example he claims to want beyond possessing the greatest backhand in the world. He is, after all, not a first-time offender when it comes to poor pandemic decision-making. It was Djokovic, after all, who was behind the disastrous maskless charity exhibition tournament in the summer of 2020 held in defiance of medical opinion that turned into a superspreader event. And now, he has apparently broken the isolation protocols of his own country by traveling to Spain and entered Australia with false documents. He has blamed human error, his handlers, but treats each infraction as an unfortunate clerical error and not a pattern of broken trust during a deadly time.
