Australian Open tournament director Craig Tiley revealed that Novak Djokovic’s father was free to attend the Australian Open final.
After skipping Djokovic’s semifinal win over Tommy Paul, Djokovic senior also wasn’t in attendance during his son’s final against Stefanos Tsitsipas.
“It’s his decision. We’re going to let it be his decision and ultimately he’s got to make the call. He didn’t breach any event policy. That’s really important because what’s been written about what he (allegedly) said hasn’t been correct and I think people are back-tracking from that. That’s unfortunate that massive assumptions were made,” Tiley told AAP, as revealed on Yahoo Sports Australia.
Tiley defends the Djokovic family
After Djokovic senior was filmed alongside pro-Russia supporters, it was also reported that he said: “Long live the Russians.”
Later, Djokovic said it was mistranslated and that his father simply said “cheers”, believing he was saying it to his fans.
Now, Tiley says it was unfortunate that the Djokovic family found themselves in such a situation.
“I know him personally and his family was devastated by what happened. It was not intentional and I agree with him and it was not designed to cause harm to anyone. It was an unfortunate situation and the Serbian fans have been great. Every day they’ve been very active and noisy and boisterous and that adds to the whole colour of the event. Then you’ve got two or three or, in this case, four individuals that ruined it and they got evicted and are not welcome back. Ideally he didn’t get caught up in that but, in that moment, you don’t know and that’s unfortunate that that happened because we’r’e a platform, we’re a global platform, and any little thing like that starts to take on a life of its own, which it didn’t need to,” Tiley explained.
Meanwhile, Djokovic defeated Tsitsipas in three sets to win a record 10th Australian Open title.
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