partnership with ben was a big one, yeah. it was tough out there. i m really delighted with it. another tennis player has had their visa cancelled by australian authorities. czech renata voracova joins novak djokovic in being denied entry into the country, because of their vaccination status, with the visas of other players being investigated too. well, fans have been protesting outside the hotel they are confined to in melbourne, where they had been hoping to play in the australian open later this month. djokovic s appeal against the decision won t be heard until monday. and fellow tennis player marin cilic says it s hard to beleive that all this is happening to the world number one. it s difficult to constructively say something objectively whether the australian government should have or should have not decided this earlier or not. that s on their own decision.
i can entirely understand why people who ve lost loved ones, or people who have just had their lives hugely disrupted by these restrictions, are angry and upset by these allegations. that s why it is right that ms gray is looking into the facts. people without covid symptoms in england no longer need a pcr test to confirm a positive lateral flow. and a man in the united states becomes the first person in the world to have a heart transplant from a pig. sport and time for a full round up from the bbc sport centre. john watsonjoins us. john watson joins us. all the fallout from the djokovic saga plus all the rest of this board? good morning. novak djokovic s former coach boris becker says the events of the last six days have left his former player shell shocked, but accepts the world number one will face some tough questions in the coming days. he s been back out on court
oh, mate, i haven t slept since he s come off the plane. we are all sick to the stomach. it s a very unfortunate situation for australia. it s becoming very embarrassing. this was novak djokovic arriving on wednesday. his legal team said he had received a vaccine exemption to enter the country from tennis australia because he had tested positive for covid on the 16th of december. that was a day on which these pictures were taken, showing novak djokovic damascus at a ceremony in his home country of serbia in which he was honoured with his own postage stamps in recognition of his achievements. it s unclear whether he had taken a test at this stage. the following day, the serbian media said he was pictured handing out awards to young players. it s unclear whether he knew he had covid. another player, renata voracova from the czech republic, has now left the hotel and the country after her visa was cancelled. novak djokovic had asked to be moved to somewhere where he could train ahead of t
saying he did not meet the rules of entry. his mother dijana said on thursday that he was being kept like a prisoner. australia s home affairs minister karen andrews hit back, saying there was nothing stopping him from leaving. mr djokovic is not being held captive in australia. he is free to leave at any time that he chooses to do so, and border force will actually facilitate that. the tennis star posted on instagram, thanking his fans around the world. another player has now had her visa cancelled. renata voracova from the czech republic is understood to be detained in the same hotel as djokovic. the australian open is one of the biggest sporting events here but it s turning into a big international embarrassment for the government. shaimaa khalil, bbc news, melbourne. stay with us on bbc news. still to come: it s a letter with no surname
we re in a holding pattern, and everybody is from novak djokovic, to the other players, to the tournament organisers, to the media watching on. and, of course, the huge international interest that we have seen. there have been a couple of developments. one that i can confirm with you which i don t think anybody else yet has but two other players who came into australia on the same visa and documents as novak djokovic actually flew out of australia when they saw what was happening to novak, and when they saw what happened to the czech player, renata voracova, who of course was detained and then deported. so that means there are four people who have now left australia. voracova, two other players whose identity is being kept quiet because of their medical records, and the official who was also deported and sent home from australia. so there are big questions there, then, about whether there was a shift in policy between when they arrived and when novak djokovic arrived or at leas