 "Why tennis fans love to hate Novak Djokovic despite his immense success on the court?")
Novak Djokovic is undoubtedly one of the greatest players in tennis, along with the other two members of the ‘Big Three’ Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. Sure, there’s no questioning someone who has played in several Grand Slam finals and won a record 24 of those but the 37-year-old has not had a walk in the park either due to multiple controversies.
Djokovic recently withdrew from his Australian Open semi-final against Alexander Zverev due to an injury after the Serb lost the first set . Djokovic had sustained the injury during his quarter-final win over Carlos Alcaraz in Melbourne and had not trained for the two days building up to the semi-final. But the former World No. 1 was booed by the Melbourne crowd as he walked off the court after his withdrawal in the semi-final.
Why do tennis fans love to hate Novak Djokovic so much?
Despite the immense success Djokovic has had on the tennis court, he just cannot get away from controversies. Back in 2008, when Djokovic defeated Jo Wilfred Tsonga to clinch his maiden Grand Slam title at the Australian Open, he was not as aggressive as he is now. Instead, he was a playful person who used to make funny impressions of people, including making fun of Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal.
Over the years, however, Djokovic’s relationship with the crowds has become pretty intense. This was the case more so during his matches against Federer, particularly in the US Open and Wimbledon. For a large part of his career, Djokovic made his hand-waving celebration a trademark, wherein he would throw up his arms to everyone at the end of the tennis court after winning a match.
More recently, however, Djokovic has done away with that celebration, and his new celebration includes disguising himself to be playing a violin and a saxophone. Some of his celebrations have also seemed a little villainous, like when he ate grass at the SW19 after he defeated Federer to win the 2019 Wimbledon.
Djokovic started getting himself into trouble during the coronavirus pandemic era. He was defaulted from the US Open in 2020, which was the first Grand Slam since the pandemic struck. He was playing a fourth round clash against Pablo Carreno-Busta and had lost the first set of that match.
After losing the set, Djokovic inadvertently hit a line judge with a ball that was not in play. Djokovic, who looked terrified by the incident, went up to the line judge to apologise, but the damage had been already done. He pleaded with the officials but that did not help. Another controversy that hit Djokovic in 2020 was the Adria Tour. The Adria Tour was an attempt by Djokovic to bring tennis to the Balkans, and the inaugural leg of the tournament in Belgrade was held in June 2020, with fans attending matches in huge numbers.
Neither fans nor the tennis players had masks on, and during the second leg in Croatia, players including Djokovic, Grigor Dimitrov and Borna Coric tested positive for COVID-19. The rest of the tournament eventually stood cancelled.
Australian Open 2022 controversy
In 2022, a fresh controversy struck Djokovic during the Australian Open. When coronavirus hampered the world in 2020, Djokovic had said that he did not believe in taking vaccines and would not be forced to take the vaccine and later that year, he had also claimed that polluted water could be purified with the help of prayers and “power of gratitude”.
Like many other countries, Australia had it mandatory for all people visiting the country to be vaccinated and this was the case before the start of the 2022 Australian Open. On 4 January, 2022, Djokovic said that he was travelling to Australia for the year’s first Grand Slam after receiving a “special exemption” from Tennis Australia.
However, on 5 January, Djokovic was detained by the Australian Border Force and was deported five days later, on 10 January. He eventually missed out on playing the Australian Open that year but has played in Melbourne every year since, even winning the 2023 edition.
While Djokovic seemed to have eased his relationship with Australia and the country’s authorities, he did recently claim that his food had been poisoned by lead during detention three years ago. “I never told this to anybody publicly, but discoveries that I had a really high level of heavy metal. I had lead, a very high level of lead and mercury,” he told GQ Magazine.
Despite his complicated relationship with the crowds at various tournaments, Djokovic continues to have a huge fanbase, both on the court and off it, on his social media channels.
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