Tennis anyone?
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Novak Djokovic, the men’s world No 1 tennis player, has tested positive for Covid-19, the Serbian said in a statement on Tuesday.
Croatia’s Borna Coric, Grigor Dimitrov of Bulgaria and Viktor Troicki have previously tested positive after playing in Djokovic’s Adria Tour exhibition tournament in the Balkan region.
Djokovic revealed that he and his wife, Jelena, had both tested positive for Covid-19 after taking a test immediately after returning to Belgrade from Zadar in Croatia where the final of the tournament was cancelled following Dimitrov’s positive test.
In the statement, Djokovic said: “I am extremely sorry for each individual case of infection. I hope that it will not complicate anyone’s health situation and that everyone will be fine.”
While other players remained in Zadar to be tested on Sunday night, Djokovic travelled home from the tournament to his home in Serbia before being tested for the virus, with Adria Tour organisers saying this was because he was not showing symptoms.
I watched a little of this tournament, and it featured essentially no social distancing measures for either the players or the fans.
Djokovic himself is unfortunately prone to extreme bouts of woo-mongering. Besides being an anti-vaxxer, he’s pushing all kinds of pseudo-medical quackery: he held an event last month where he claimed that through the power of thought people can transform toxic food and water into something healthy: “Through the power of prayer, through the power of gratitude, they manage to turn the most toxic food or the most polluted water, into the most healing water.”
If you’re not a tennis fan, Djokovic is one of the three greatest players of all time (Tennis has been in a situation for the last dozen years comparable to Babe Ruth, Willie Mays, and Barry Bonds all being contemporaries). He’s an enormous international sports star, and this story is unfortunate on multiple levels.