The tournament that Novak Djokovic recently launched in the Balkans, the Adria Tour, showed a general relaxation of the measures against the coronavirus, with several positives as a consequence. The local press highlighted some recklessness on Wednesday, “easing” the pressure on number one a little, accused of almost all ills.
“After all, it may be the result of all of us, including tennis players, having relaxed,” the Croatian sports daily ‘Sportske Novosti’ estimated, a day after the announcement of the positive by Djokovic. In addition to the Serbian player who won 17 Grand Slam tournaments, three other guests invited to play the Adria Tour (Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov, Croatian Borna Coric and Serbian Viktor Troicki) announced their positives after that series of charitable matches in the Balkans. , where the physical distance was not kept neither on the tracks, nor in the stands, nor outside the stadiums.
Photos and videos also illustrate festive nights of the players in restaurants and clubs. “The parties, the fan encounters and the relaxed outings showed that people did not care much about security measures in these times of pandemic,” stressed the Bosnian information website Klix.
The consequences of these positive cases can have a disastrous effect for professional tennis, which should resume its circuits in August. However, Djokovic has not violated any law or regulation in organizing his event.
Serbian center Nikola Jokic, star of the NBA Denver Nuggets, also tested positive for coronavirus last week in his country. Jokic was seen with visible weight loss witnessing a basketball match in Belgrade, where he greeted several people warmly, including Djokovic.
Measures raised
Serbia already lifted the sanitary measures to fight the virus when the Adria Tour began on June 13 in Belgrade, in front of crowded stands. The 4,000 people who gathered in the outdoor stands were well below the 16,000 people who attended a soccer match the same weekend. At the same time, restaurants and nightclubs were officially open, with or without Djokovic.
After Belgrade, the Adria Tour moved last week to Zadar (Croatia), where containment measures were also being lifted. The country had not officially registered any new cases of infection for several days.
“When we accepted Novak’s idea to organize the tournament, the epidemiological situation in Croatia clearly improved,” says the president of the Croatian Tennis Federation, Nikolina Babic, to the newspaper ‘Vecernji List’. “Small mistakes have been made, but the idea was a good one,” he reaffirms, referring to the non respect of social distancing.
Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic, who was in the stands in Zadar on Saturday and who had physical contact with Djokovic’s shoulder, was also criticized in his country for not having isolated himself after learning of these positive cases of tennis players. Plenkovic failed the coronavirus test, but the opposition estimates that he is putting the population at risk by continuing his electoral campaign for the July 5 legislative elections.
Learn to ride a bike
Djokovic was pointed out in recent days as ‘guilty’ of the failures of this tournament. His father, Srdjan Djokovic, was among the first to take pressure off his son, accusing the Bulgarian Dimitrov, the first player to announce his positive on Sunday, of having “arrived probably ill” at the tournament. “Grigor strictly respected all the rules imposed by the organizers and by law,” Dimitrov’s team replied.
For the Serbian newspaper ‘Danas’, Djokovic’s positive is “perhaps the best warning that no one is untouchable by this virus.”
ATP President Andrea Gaudenzi compared this case to children trying to learn to ride a bicycle on Monday at the ‘New York Times’ before learning of Djokovic’s positive. “It is a bit like when you explain to children who are learning to ride a bicycle that they should wear a helmet. They tell you no, no, no … They try to ride, they fall and then they agree to wear a helmet, “he said.
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