Playing In Our Faces

The Australia v. Djokovic saga has dominated new cycles for the past week in and outside of the tennis world; it highlighted many of the anxieties and political squabbles of the COVID-19 pandemic, spurred infighting between various levels of Australian government, and most importantly, was completely avoidable. There is plenty of blame to go around here: to Djokovic, to his family’s increasingly bizarre statements, to the Prime Minister's cynical political maneuvers, and to the head of Tennis Australia, who committed an astonishing number of unforced errors. We give you a timeline and the cast of characters as we attempt to contextualize this debacle as best we can. 

00:30 Setting the scene, and why we don’t do emergency episodes

12:40 Jan 4-6: Today I’m heading Down Under with an exemption per-.... oop

22:30 Jan 8: The zero-sum game resulting from the positive PCR test

29:30 Jan 10: The hearing none of us understood

37:05 The dramatis personae: starting with Craig Tiley and Tennis Australia

40:20 The Victoria Government (and why state governments shouldn’t get immigration advice from a sporting organization)

45:00 Prime Minister Scott Morrison scoring political points, or; “rules are rules” 

49:25 Learning about Australia’s refugee crisis and draconian immigration policies

58:00 Hubris, extremism, and strange bedfellows