Djokovic’s visa was canceled for a second time by the Australian government on Friday. Alex Hawke, the Immigration Minister, decided to exercise his “personal power” to order the Serb’s deportation as it was in the “public interest” to do so. Hawke’s decision came just a few days after the World No. 1’s visa was reinstated by the court.
Against that background, Marchenko took to Twitter on Saturday to lash out at the authorities responsible for Djokovic’s plight. The former World No. 49 began by pointing out how the court had ruled in the Serb’s favor initially, before claiming the verdict became inconsequential as the government “found a way to cancel his visa anyway.”
Marchenko also opined that the Australian government was manipulating the Serb’s case to gain political points ahead of the election later this year.
Marchenko, who lost in the first qualifying round at this year’s Australian Open, also joked that the reason other players were not willing to speak out in support of Djokovic was that they feared the government would cancel their visa too.
“Australian government is just playing political games which have nothing to do with health or tennis” - Illya Marchenko on Novak Djokovic’s plight
Replying to Marchenko’s tweet, one tennis fan claimed that even though she didn’t agree with the government’s handling of Djokovic’s situation, the Serb had given them enough reason to deport him by attending events while having COVID-19 and making an error on his travel declaration form.
In response, Marchenko suggested Djokovic might not have been aware of his positive PCR test result before he attended the aforementioned events. The Ukrainian also gave the Serb the benefit of the doubt over the error in his travel form, saying the Serb likely didn’t fill it out himself.
Marchenko was, however, quick to point out that he didn’t agree with the Serb going out in public after testing positive.
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