Liam Broady hits out at grand slam no-shows as Novak Djokovic remains on US Open entry list
British tennis star Liam Broady called out selfish players for disrupting tournaments with late withdrawals – but then said that he wasn’t talking about Novak Djokovic.
The clarification was necessary because Djokovic’s name is still on the entry list for Monday’s US Open, even though his unvaccinated status makes it extremely unlikely that he will be able to play.
Assuming that the US government makes no last-minute change to its immigration rules – which still insist that all visitors must have been vaccinated against Covid – Djokovic will be unable to participate in New York.
The US Open is thus poised to become the second grand-slam event that Djokovic has missed this year because of his rejection of the Covid vaccine. In January, he was dramatically expelled from Australia after a ruling from immigration minister Alex Hawke.
Writing on Twitter, Broady said: “There should be a rule against late withdrawals from slams when you know you aren’t going to play.”
His point was that fringe players – those ranked in the vicinity of No110 to No120 in the world – can miss out on valuable prizemoney if they are forced to go through the demolition derby of qualifying. In an ideal world, higher-ranked players would withdraw in a timely fashion, and the ranking cut-off for admission would drop down one place each time.
When he was barracked by passionate Djokovic fans, Broady insisted that “This tweet isn’t about ND … I think ND still believes there’s a chance he plays. Totally fine. I’m against people who have acute injuries or just know way before the tournament they won’t be playing. It can cost the guy one out of main draw a lot of money as qualifying isn’t guaranteed.”
Djokovic’s hopes of a late reprieve seemed to be improving earlier this month when the American Centre for Disease Control relaxed some of its Covid protocols, but no recent changes have been made to immigration rules.
A spokesperson for the United States Tennis Association said Djokovic would not be excluded from Thursday’s US Open draw, despite his slim prospects of participating. Since he is listed as the fifth seed, any withdrawal between Thursday lunchtime (US time) and Monday morning will require that draw to be reshuffled.
Meanwhile, a“Tennis Plays for Peace” exhibition event in New York will take place without the participation of Belarusian star Victoria Azarenka. The Ukrainian player Marta Kostyuk had previously expressed criticism of Azarenka, saying that “You never talked to us about the Russian war, we haven’t seen a clear public stance, you don’t have a friendly relationship with us, but you want to join a pro-Ukrainian event … I don’t get it.”
In a statement released on Wednesday afternoon, the USTA said: “Given the sensitivities to Ukrainian players, and the ongoing conflict, we believe this is the right course of action.”