Melbourne, January 10: Serbian tennis icon Novak Djokovic made a shocking claim that he felt he was poisoned with "lead and mercury" during his stay in Melbourne before being deported from Australia ahead of that year's Australian Open due to him not taking a COVID-19 vaccination.
Djokovic is heading to the Australian shores with his mind on a record-extending 11th Australian Open title, a record-breaking 25th Grand Slam title, the most by any player across men's and women's categories and finally, a century of ATP Tour level titles.
While Australia has been memorable to Djokovic with plenty to cherish on-court, it was also where one of his life's darkest chapters unfolded.
Djokovic had refused to take the COVID-19 vaccine and had openly expressed at that time his freedom to take or not take something inside his body. But before the tournament took place amid a pandemic, Djokovic was first detained in a Melbourne hotel and later deported owing to him not taking a jab. He was unable to participate in the tournament.
Speaking to GQ, Djokovic revealed that when he returned to Serbia, he felt a high-level presence of "heavy metal and mercury" in his body.
"I had some health issues. And I realised that in that hotel in Melbourne, I was fed with some food that poisoned me," Djokovic told GQ as quoted by WWOS.
"I had some discoveries when I came back to Serbia. I never told this to anybody publicly, but discovered that I was, I had a really high level of heavy metal. Heavy metal. I had the lead, very high level of lead and mercury," he added.
The former world number one also said that he was put in a "jail room" at Melbourne, unlike other athletes who were undergoing a hard quarantine ahead of the tournament.
"A lot of the athletes who were doing a quarantine for like 40 days before were also locked in the room. But the difference is that obviously they were not in kind of a jail room and I was," he said.
"I had a paper with like a hundred items: from toothbrush, toothpaste, water, food, whatever. And I had to choose, tick the certain boxes, and each of these items carries a certain amount of points, and I had 60 points in total of what I was allowed to receive."
"So I did that 59 or 60 points, and I gave it to them. Twenty minutes later I come back and they say, we made a mistake, you do not have 60, you have 30. So I was like, you must be kidding me," he added.
Djokovic, 37, said that he was made a scapegoat over his stance on COVID-19 vaccination and the entire episode was political since politicians could not "stand" him.
"That is the actual reason why I was deported from Australia. That is what the three federal judges said in the end. Their sentence is that they are not in a position to question the discretionary right of the [immigration] minister. It was so political," he said.
"It had nothing really to do with vaccine or COVID or anything else. It's just political. The politicians could not stand me being there. For them, I think, it was less damage to deport me than to keep me there," he added.
The 36-year-old said that he does not have any grudges with Australia or the Australian people but it is his family which still holds strong feelings about the entire episode.
"For me, I am fine. I never held any grudge over the Australian people. On the contrary, actually, a lot of Australian people that I meet, I met in Australia the last few years or elsewhere in the world, coming up to me and apologising to me for the treatment I received because they were embarrassed by their own government at that point," he said.
"And I think the government's changed and they reinstated my visa and I was very grateful for that. It's a new prime minister and new ministers, new people, so I do not hold any grudge for that. I actually love being there, and I think my results are a testament to my sensation of playing tennis and just being in that country," he signed off.
His first-round opponent will be USA's Nishesh Basavareddy on Sunday.
His last ATP tour-level title win came in the ATP Paris Masters event in November 2023 while his last Grand Slam win was the US Open title against Daniil Medvedev in September that year.
Djokovic recently took part in the Brisbane International, losing to Reilly Opelka in the quarterfinals. He will be teaming up with tennis icon and former rival Andy Murray as a coach-player duo for Australian Open.
