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KATHMANDU, JANUARY 26
I am not a fan of Novak Djokovic, the current world's number one tennis player, nor do I fancy his rivals, Rafa or Roger.
They are great players, but I deem them too technical tennis machines. I liked players like the Romanian Ilie Nastase and the American John McEnroe, the tennis warriors, as I like to call them. Along with thousands of others, they deserve a lot of credit for making tennis what it is today.
Of all the woman players, I liked Chris Evert the most as I had a crush on her. I remember how furtively I would leaf through the Indian papers to enjoy her powerful pose of a serve and volley.
Then there was Billie Jean, whom I remember more as masculine. Two female players that scorched the tennis arena are Martina Hingis, known as the Swiss Miss, and her enduring rival, Monica Seles, both of whom captured my fancy. Sadly, their rivalry all but ended when a fanatic fan of the Swiss Miss stabbed Seles. There were many great female players out there. Having watched her play, I like the teenage Raducano today; I feel she will find it hard to maintain her pole position because of the intense nature of the game. Djokovic is the tennis equivalent of Messi and Ronaldo, the clinical surgeons of their respective games.
So, when states try to haul them over the red hot coal over visa or their individual beliefs, one cannot help feeling sorry for their predicament. That said, you have to respect the rule of a country, especially the host countries. No one, not even sportsmen or artists, are above the laws of a country.
Djokovic's saga seems to be somewhat mysterious. At the outset, he reportedly said he would skip the game in Melbourne as he would not take the mandatory vaccine. Later, it appeared that he earned himself an exemption from the jabs.
Then we started to read about his Australian visa odyssey that ended in his victory but not the final one. Why they didn't turn him away when he landed is mystifying. Whatever the Djokovic saga, it shines the spotlight on Australian immigration laws and hopes it will do the same for rules change as McEnroe's antics did for the game.
I saw first-hand the draconian Australian quarantine law at work at Melbourne airport. A tiny poodle pawed a small bag with some sandwiches inside, and an officer asked the owner, a young local lad to eat or throw.
The lad remonstrated that he was an Australian flying from Sydney. The officer barked: "This is not Sydney. Eat or throw."
I salute the intrepid indigenous Nepalis of all classes that travel to Australia as if they were going to Kathmandu. After the Melbourne sandwich episode, I had doubts about my next port of disembarkation: Perth.
A version of this article appears in the print on January 27, 2022, of The Himalayan Times.
