GAME ON: Vaccination controversy highlights the Djoker conundrum

As for what's transpired over the last week, the whole thing is so riddled with claims and counter claims it's well beyond this column to play detective.

From afar, it looks something like George Costanza and Mike Moffitt fighting over a parking space.

What we know is that Djokovic was "one of a handful" of players granted a vaccination exemption to take part in the Australian Open in pursuit of his 10^th crown down under (and a record-making 21^st career grand slam).

Two medical bodies signed off on it and he made the trip to Australia with that knowledge. The Australian Border Force's response was along the lines of 'no one told us'.

It looks more bureaucratic bungle than hard-nosed defence of our borders. The fact Prime Minister Scott Morrison scrambled to take credit for it after the outrage Djokovic's initial exemption swept the country is nothing short of typical.

Sympathy for Djokovic though? Yeah, nah.

Boiled down, he could have avoided it all by simply getting the jab. Months ago.

His great peer Rafael Nadal spoke for many when he offered up that succinct assessment this week.

It's a simple one but, when it comes to Djokovic, nothing's ever simple. It's hard to think of an athlete whose character, career and legacy is so riddled with contradictions and complexities.

Even his moniker 'The Djoker' has taken on different meanings throughout his career.

These days it's a fitting description of man who's become tennis' great supervillain. Early on though, it described a young man who derived clear joy from both playing the game and being one of its supreme entertainers, on and off the court.

It endeared him to fans everywhere, not least in Australia.

It belied both the stereotype of the cold serious Serb, and a fierce competitive drive that would make him the best player of all time.

In the eyes of tennis-lovers, that latter fact remains his greatest 'crime'. And it came long before the pandemic.

Fans relished the arrival of a precocious young talent that could break the Roger Federer-Nadal duopoly that had become dull.

They relished it until it became clear he was going surpass, not one, but both of his far more beloved contemporaries.

With Federer and Nadal not yet retired, he hasn't even given us time to bask in the afterglow of their wonderful decorated careers.

He's yet to fully carry it out, but it became apparent years ago that he would. It's left him battling with the LeBron James effect.

What James is currently doing in year 19 of his NBA career, having recently turned 37, is simply staggering.

It should be met with universal acclaim, yet James is quite probably the most unfairly maligned athlete we've ever seen.

Why? Because it became apparent some years back that he will surpass Michael Jordan, if not in hearts and minds, by sheer weight of numbers.

It's seen critics perpetually scouring James' on and off-court legacy for holes. Look hard enough and you'll find them, even in the closest thing to all-round basketball perfection we've ever seen.

Like James, it became apparent some years back that Djokovic was going to unseat an icon. Unfortunately, that's where the comparisons with James end.

While Djokovic has copped his share of unfair criticism, he continues to invite warranted scrutiny with his own actions.

In the battle for hearts and minds, Djokovic's recent past is littered with own goals.

Holding a special invitational tournament across multiple countries right as the pandemic took hold in 2020 was hubris of the highest order.

It was a self-inflicted wound that festered into the the criticism he received in the lead-up to the last Australian Open over his requests for luxurious quarantine facilities.

Those 'demands' were taken out of context to some degree, but they were far from endearing in a Melbourne en route to becoming the most locked down city in the world.

On the court, supposedly feigning injury and exhibiting various other bizarre behaviours to upset opponents' rhythm rubs people the wrong way.

Likewise, the predicament in which he currently finds himself is another entirely of his own making.

His father's comments in the Serbian press likening his son to "Spartacus" and describing him as a "leader of the free world" perhaps go some way to explaining why Djokovic is the way he is.

I guess we can put him on the anti-vaxx Mount Rushmore alongside fellow persecuted multi-millionaires Aaron Rodgers and Kyrie Irving.

That a man who is the best ever in his chosen craft, who has a lengthy history of large-scale philanthropy, who married his high school sweetheart, who's courted controversy but never scandal, can be so widely detested is remarkable.

All of the above warrants credit and respect but, like that of his on-court exploits, it's given begrudgingly.

That he's arguably most reviled in the country in which he's won almost half of his career Grand Slams is stranger still.

To borrow a phrase from my old man - it takes a special kind of dickhead.

The fact the greatest player we've ever seen is so difficult to like is a great shame for him and for us.

It's not sympathy, quite frankly he doesn't deserve it, but there's a lot of things the Djoker hasn't, or doesn't deserve.

His unmatched record of achievement isn't one of them. Like the man himself, we don't have to like it, but we must accept it.

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