by Roger L. Simon
Stefanos Tsitsipas is one terrific tennis player, although Novak Djokovic was battling more than the young Greek when he won his 10th Australian Open and 22nd Grand Slam in straight sets on Jan. 29.
On the other side of the court were Pfizer, Moderna, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the World Health Organization (WHO), the Biden administration, and a whole host of others who have been urging—even worse, requiring—us to take the mRNA shots for the past couple of years because the Serb is, almost indisputably, the most famously unvaccinated person against COVID-19 on the planet.
At the same time, the argument is approaching indisputable that he’s not only the GOAT [greatest of all time] of tennis—something I subscribe to, having been a fan and mediocre player for 70 years and having watched everyone from Rod Laver onward— but arguably the most incredible athlete in any sport in this century.
Singles tennis in our time has become one of the most physically and strategically demanding sports. Many of the younger players range from 6-foot-5 to 7-foot-plus and wouldn’t seem out of place in the NBA finals. But unlike the basketball players, they get no respite in a five-set match. They’re on their own.
Yet Djokovic is doing all this, beating them all, at the age of 35, with no end in sight.
What does this all mean? Few, if any, of us could emulate his rigid gluten-free, vegetarian diet or keep up with his mind-and-body-boggling exercise program. (Watch it on YouTube and try to keep your mouth from dropping open.)
And Djokovic, by himself, doesn’t mean the vaccines (or shots, as they really are) are bad.
Yet, with all the stories of fit athletes across the world mysteriously dropping dead or passing out, you can’t but wonder.
You can’t but wonder, too—when Tsitsipas, at the tournament awards ceremony, called Novak the greatest-ever to hold a racquet and added, in essence, how he appreciated the tennis lesson—whether the Greek star also thought of their relatively close match: What if I hadn’t taken those shots?; maybe I would have won.
Athletes all around the world may be thinking the same thing. Were I one, I know I would.
It should now be clear that healthy people under the age of 50, possibly even 60, should never have put these experimental drugs in their bodies. Even though I am older than that, I regret having done so myself very early on. I can assure you I didn’t touch the boosters.
But where does that leave the man who is once again No. 1 in the world for a staggering 374 weeks and counting?
In his continuing duel for the most Grand Slam victories with Rafael Nadal, he’s at a handicap. Djokovic is allowed to play virtually everywhere but not, as of now, in the United States. That means no U.S. Open and also no Indian Wells and Miami 1000 tournaments—the second level in tennis below Slam events—that are coming in the spring.
They will all take place without the man who would have been seeded No. 1, putting an asterisk next to the tournaments for all time, just as there should clearly be asterisks next to last year’s Australian Open and U.S. Open, both which, it is a safe bet, Djokovic would have one as well.
As a huge tennis fan, when I lived in Los Angeles, I attended the Indian Wells tournament many times. This year, I was planning to make it to the Miami tournament for the first time.
No dice. I’m not going to any tennis tournament in which the greatest of all time isn’t allowed to play. I hope other fans will join me in my boycott. The players too might want to follow suit.
More importantly, I have learned over the last couple of years how correct that old ’60s feminist apothegm—“our bodies, ourselves”—really was. Too bad its investors have flip-flopped on the issue. I’m planning on sticking with it.
So, apparently, does Novak Djokovic.
First published in the Epoch Times.
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One Response
Three cheers for Novak!
He was one of the best known people to stand up against the gross authoritarianism of the covidian cult and gave hope to all of us less popular folks laboring under the jackboot. In doing so, he put his career on the line and possibly the chance of attaining the record he has now achieved.
More to the point, Djokovic took a principled stand against bullying, lies and coercion. The graceful manner in which he accepted the refusal of authorities in Australia and
the US to allow him to compete stood in stark contrast to the behavior of the vaccination mandate goon squads who smeared and slandered him in the mainstream and social media. Not to mention the fraudulent posturing of the bullies & liars running the “apocalyptic pandemic”.
Novak has since been proved correct a thousand times over.
For me, one moment which stands out was the sheer absurdity of authorities denying him access to the US open last year, while for months before and after illegal migrants potentially carrying all manner of disease were streaming across the southern border at the rate of around 2000 a day! Many folks saw this and drew their conclusions.
More importantly, though, we must never allow this to happen again.