Australian Open 2022: Debate about tennis star Novak Djokovic: Defend yourself against the twilight!

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The tennis world number one Novak Djokovic

Photo: Justin Setterfield / Getty Images

The Australian Open 2022 now have their theme.

Until the tennis tournament starts, it will no longer be a question of whether Alexander Zverev or Rafael Nadal are in title form, what the young star Emma Raducanu can achieve in Melbourne, how much Roger Federer will be missing from the tournament.

Everything is overshadowed by the question: Can it be that someone like Novak Djokovic can take part in a tournament to which only double-vaccinated players have access?

The outrage in Australia about the granted exemption for the world number one is great, the press outnumbered itself with headlines: "Hypocrisy", "villain", these are the more harmless words with which the tennis superstar is given.

There may be good reasons for this special permit.

As long as these are not disclosed, however, there will be lively speculation whether the tournament officials here kowtowed the best player in the world and threw their principles overboard in lockdown-plagued Australia.

The price to bring the sporty figurehead of men's tennis to Melbourne.

So far only nebulous hints

Djokovic himself could do a lot to shed light on the circumstances by making the details of this decision transparent.

But if he deals with it the same way as with his vaccination status, about which he has only been giving nebulous hints for months, little can be expected from his side.

It will probably turn out differently: At the beginning of the tournament Djokovic will still run the gauntlet. Then the whistles get quieter from round to round, and in the end the Serb celebrates his 21st Grand Slam triumph and goes down in tennis history. Because then nobody else won the big tournaments as often as he did. And then it won't matter that Djokovic normally wouldn't have been able to play in this tournament.

The sport currently has a problem: Djokovic, football star Aaron Rodgers, initially also Bayern professional Joshua Kimmich with their capers on the vaccination topic - they own the headlines, they are sure of the media public.

That sport behaves largely sensibly in these times, that most athletes carefully observe all hygiene measures, that the overwhelming majority follow the rule of vaccination - this is neglected in view of prominent individual cases propagating the opposite.

In the twilight.

And the sport lets you do it.

When it comes to other major social issues, athletes have now risen to become spokespeople themselves.

When it comes to racism, homophobia, sexism and human rights, when it comes to showing one's colors, athletes have taken matters into their own hands in recent years.

Leon Goretzka, Marcus Rashford, Megan Rapinoe.

The model of the responsible athlete

You have wrested the hilt of action from the reluctant, stubborn, unwilling functionaries.

An act of enlightenment, almost in the classical sense of Kant: as the exit of humans from their self-inflicted immaturity.

The responsible athlete, the responsible athlete, the model of a modern sport.

With the Corona issue, on the other hand, it is largely and without great resistance that the Djokovics and Rodgers bring the image of their own profession into disrepute with their views, with their intellectual absurdities.

The ATP says that 95 of the top 100 men's tennis rankings are fully vaccinated: But everyone is now talking about Novak Djokovic.

Taking a stand when it comes to your own colleagues can be tricky, it is more difficult than taking a stand against politics or the officials.

That can easily be interpreted as stepping against the competition.

Or as nest pollution, even if it is actually a nest cleaning.

When it comes to doping, some athletes have managed to take on their colleagues. The biathlon star Martin Fourcade, who once refused to shake hands with Russian athletes, the swimmers who clearly protested against Doper Sun Yang's right to start. But here too there was great silence for many years. It was also the omerta in cycling that made it so much easier for Lance Armstrong and his ilk to pull off their doping excesses.

It is the self-cleaning powers that most help sport to regain lost ground in terms of credibility, trust and integrity.

This would also include saying loudly and clearly: It is not okay for dubious exceptions to be granted for the Australian Open.

It is not okay if athletes violate corona regulations - and then they get away more or less without sanctions.

Because it is your own sport that is damaged by it.

Because those who adhere to all regulations also get discredited.

Fair sport comes under joint liability.

Athletes who say nothing about this should not complain about it.