It was sweltering in the holiday villa and I started to sweat, which was odd as the air con was on and a pleasant Atlantic breeze was taking full advantage of an open window.
I could hear the usual shouts and shrieks from a nearby pool being carried in on the light wind, and smell flower scent from the villa’s pretty little garden – mingled with an aroma of bacon, eggs and sausages floating from the busy on-site cafe about 30 yards away.
It was about four months ago, but still clear in my mind – probably because I can’t wait to go back this year.
It was a lazy scene, apart from animated clusters of departing guests with anxious looks on their faces, clutching what I shall call Novak Djokovic paperwork in their hands.
You could always tell when people were going home: they were stressed out around the pool, conferring together in fear of getting kicked off a plane or out of a country if they messed up their Covid travel paperwork.
So, it was inexplicable that Djokovic’s team had bungled a task as obvious as executing an overhead smash. They seemed to have forgotten the recent movements of their great unvaccinated champion (a champion not only in tennis, but also for anti-vaxxers worldwide) during the previous 14 days.
They were accused of misleading Australian immigration authorities by overlooking this little detail in their visa paperwork.
It reminded me of that frazzled afternoon I spent in the villa, looking the Scottish Government’s infernal Covid crisis locator form for arriving back from overseas. I was sweating from the pressure of making sure everything was filled in correctly for our tricky return trip to Scotland from Spain via Holland.
I don’t buy the ‘human error’ defence
It’s at times like this I wish I had a non-perspiration affliction like the Duke of York. I could have done with that as I reached the “where have you been in the last 14 days?” section in the Scottish form. The question makes you feel guilty in a “show us your papers” sense, even if you have done absolutely nothing wrong.
So, how could the Djokovic people make such a blasé error? I don’t buy it.
People around the pool in the Canaries weren’t making unforced errors like this. They were doing what I was doing: checking and rechecking the paperwork until we were blue in the face. It’s called attention to detail.
The Djokovic camp explained it away as simple human error, but people don’t make those mistakes if they genuinely recheck the answer to such a straightforward, basic question. After all, this was a pivotal point in the great man’s career, as he reached for a record-breaking pinnacle of wins.
Australia defend their borders as fiercely as Number 10 staff preserving their right to party, despite Covid restrictions
There was a hoo-ha in Serbia about their darling hero being incarcerated like someone facing the Spanish Inquisition. But don’t they watch the Border Security: Australia’s Front Line reality show? My wife and I do.
Woe betide you if you even as much as slip a sly tin of sardines into your suitcase. Their customs officers are a formidable bunch who defend their borders as fiercely as Number 10 staff preserving their right to party, despite Covid restrictions.
Game, set and match for the Aussies
It’s in hard pandemic times like these that the rest of us – those left to eat cake outside the world of privileged classes – are bound to feel a heightened sense of injustice and outrage at transgressors. That applies equally to a sports superstar trying to beat the system, or a bunch of arrogant boozed-up civil servants.
For Djokovic, the die was cast as soon as the words “he’ll be on the next plane home” left the Aussie PM’s lips. It chimed with public opinion in one of the most locked-down places on earth.
As one Australian immigration lawyer put it, it was all about politics swirling around non-vaccination and Djokovic’s iconic status with anti-vaxxers, unwitting or otherwise. He looks to be running into the same brick wall at May’s French Open – a country which has also been delivering some stunning vaccination backhanders to its populace.
Djokovic was poleaxed, not on a tennis court or in a court of law, but in the court of public opinion, where there was little sympathy – and was unstoppable when the tide began running in a certain direction.
So, it was game, set and match for the Aussies, something Djokovic hasn’t heard much in his career. But I wouldn’t like to be an Australian who has just booked a holiday to Serbia.
David Knight is the long-serving former deputy editor of The Press and Journal
