days after djokovic s visa was canceled on arriving in australia. at that time authorities determined he did not qualify for a medical exemption from the country s covid vaccination requirements for entry. cnn is covering all the angles and phil black is in melbourne following the latest developments and cnn world sports patrick snell is joining us from here in atlanta with what could come next for djokovic. phil black in melbourne, let s go to you first. talk about the decision here and how it came to be because it has surprised all of australia and a lot of people outside of the country. reporter: so, rosemary, djokovic s lawyers argued that the process in which novak djokovic had been pulled aside at the airport last thursday morning, questioned, left alone in a room, asked to present his
hours after an uaustralian federal court upheld a decision to revoke his visa for a second time. the judges saying australia s immigration minister acted lawfully when he canceled djokovic s visa citing concerns the unvaccinated star could stir up anti-vaccine sentiment. djokovic is getting plenty of support back home. belgrade lit up its tallest building in his honor calling him the pride of serbia. the country s prime minister has called the australian court s decision scandalous. cnn world sports patrick snell is standing by in atlanta with a look at what this means for the tournament, but let s go to anna joining us live from hong kong. after days of much embarrassment on all sides, djokovic is now out of the australian open, out of the country. what is the latest on all of
patrick snell, we ll keep an eye out. thank you very much. joining me now is espn senior writer howard bryant. great to have you with us. good to be here. in an article you wrote a few days ago that djokovic has, i m quoting here, cemented his membership within the pandemic s most infamous group, the anti-vax multimillionaire athlete who behaves as if his fame, wealth and enormous platform to disseminate misinformation places him above the rest of us. since then, uaustralia has thron him out of the country for doing exactly that. what message does this send other anti-vaccine athletes and the entire sports community? it s a devastating blow for him. tennis is an individual sport. novak djokovic is the greatest male tennis player in the world right now. he s chasing greatness and for
australia. and let s bring in cnn world sports patrick snell. players would like to be talking tennis, but instead they re all being asked about novak. what is djokovic s biggest rival saying at the open this year? yeah, michael. great to see you. tell you what, phil black has been very busy as well today. more on that coming right up. you re spot on. you could just sense the frustration, talking rafael nadal here. the spanish legend, who like djokovic is going for a men s record 21st grand slam title. so this saturday they had players media day down there at melbourne park. we all know this saga has been dreing on for days now and it s clear that the man from majorca, nadal, just wants to focus on the tournament itself. take a listen to what he said earlier to our own phil black. i m just a player that i m
shall see. there s other quality players out there. nadal is interesting. he came out showing off his sympathy as well. he was saying, look, i do have sympathy to some degree for djokovic, this was a few days ago, but saying, look, the solution, he knew it well, was simple. he could have avoided all of this, rosemary, said nadal, if he just got vaccinated to enter australia. yeah. exactly right. phil black in melbourne. patrick snell here in atlanta. many thanks to both of you for joining us. appreciate it. i want to bring in david law now. he is co-host of the tennis podcast and joins us live from london. thank you so much for being with us. thank you. so how is this australian court decision playing out around the world even as people of course now start to digest what it actually means and as we wait to see if this is the end of it and whether, indeed, djokovic does eventually play in the australian open?