The Australian government cancelled Novak Djokovic’s visa for a second time on Friday, saying the world tennis No. 1, unvaccinated for COVID-19, may pose a risk to the community.
“Today I exercised my power under section 133C(3) of the Migration Act to cancel the visa held by Mr. Novak Djokovic on health and good order grounds, on the basis that it was in the public interest to do so,” Immigration Minister Alex Hawke said Friday, a day after Djokovic was included in the Open’s draw.
Before the decision, the tennis superstar admitted to sitting for an interview and a photo shoot with a French news outlet after testing positive as well as falsely claiming on his immigration forms that he had not traveled in the 14 days before arriving in Australia. He called attending the photoshoot “an error in judgment” and said the false declaration on the form had been an “administrative mistake” made by someone on his team.