Through the Australian Open, Srdjan Djokovic filmed with pro-Russian followers

OPEN D’AUSTRALIE – Inconvenient father determine. The daddy of Serbian tennis participant Novak Djokovic was filmed with followers waving pro-Russian flags throughout the Australian Open tennis event. Scenes of the so-called “shameful” by the Ukrainian ambassador in Canberra.

After Novak Djokovic’s quarter-final win over Russian Andrei Rublev on Wednesday (January 25), a bunch of followers unfurled Russian flags, together with one with President Vladimir Putin’s face, close to the Rod Laver Melbourne Area, chanting pro-Russian slogans.

AND video then posted on Australia’s pro-Russian YouTube channel confirmed Srdjan Djokovic, the participant’s father, posing with a person waving a flag with Putin’s face on it. Something with the phrases: “Novak Djokovic’s father makes daring political assertion”. Serbian sports activities journalists confirmed that it was certainly Djokovic’s father.

The Australian Tennis Federation reported that 4 folks had accomplished so “flew inappropriate flags and symbols and threatened safety guards” in Melbourne Park earlier than being chased away by the police.

The embarrassing presence of pro-war symbols

At this Australian Open, spectators usually are not allowed to indicate Russian or Belarusian flags. Ukraine’s ambassador to Australia and New Zealand, Vasyl Myroshnychenko, additionally demanded motion after a number of of those flags have been seen within the crowd final week.

“It is a full catalog. Among the many Serbian flags are: the Russian flag, Putin, the Z image, the so-called flag of the Donetsk Folks’s Republic”, he tweeted Thursday with a hyperlink to the video. “ It is actually a disgrace”was outraged by the eye of the Australian Federation and the organizers of the Open.

Throughout Novak’s recreation, one other fan was photographed by AFP within the stadium carrying a T-shirt with the image ” FROM “a pro-war image related to assist for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as seen beneath.

WILLIAM WEST / AFP

A person carrying a “Z” shirt throughout the quarter-final between Serbia’s Novak Djokovic and Russia’s Andrei Rublev, subsequent to followers waving Serbian flags, January 25, 2023 in Melbourne.

Forward of the Djokovic-Rublev match, Simeon Boikov, who hosts a YouTube channel that hosts a video with the daddy of the Serbian champion, known as on Russian followers to come back to Melbourne Park, the venue for the Open Australia, to protest the ban on flagging.

“The West Would not Like It”

Cookie cutters, public demonstrations… This new extraordinary efficiency from Srdjan Djokovic, who’s used to noisy interventions and a fierce defender of his son, comes as no shock.

A 12 months in the past, he went to the entrance traces to defend his son who was detained in Melbourne after which expelled from Australia resulting from his vaccination standing. In Belgrade, he then led raucous demonstrations by followers protesting the remedy of Novak by the Australian authorities and in contrast the destiny of his son with that of Jesus Christ.

By way of the years and controversy, Djokovic’s father has not departed from his lineage, which he believes is the battle of an bold athlete with the envy of the West. “The West Would not Like It”stated Srdjan about his son in 2021 on Prva TV. “They must admit that he’s the perfect and would be the greatest within the historical past of tennis. »

Because the Russian invasion of Ukraine eleven months in the past, many Serbs have sided with Moscow, which has robust cultural and historic ties with Belgrade. Professional-Russian murals flourished on the partitions of the Serbian capital as ultranationalist teams staged demonstrations in assist of the Kremlin. A chunk that might undoubtedly clarify the looks of Djokovic’s father subsequent to those supporters, even when Srdjan has by no means publicly proven his assist for Russia.

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