{"id":44501,"date":"2021-12-26T12:56:23","date_gmt":"2021-12-26T17:56:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/?p=44501"},"modified":"2021-12-26T12:56:23","modified_gmt":"2021-12-26T17:56:23","slug":"novak-djokovic-withdraws-from-atp-cup-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2021\/12\/26\/novak-djokovic-withdraws-from-atp-cup-report\/","title":{"rendered":"Novak Djokovic Withdraws From ATP Cup: Report"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>World No. 1 Novak Djokovic has reportedly pulled out from the forthcoming ATP Cup according to a reliable Serbian source. The 16-team tournament which served as tennis&#8217; curtain-raiser in the past two seasons will kick off on New Year&#8217;s Day.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/sport.blic.rs\/tenis\/novak-djokovic-ne-igra-atp-kup-u-sidneju\/k2rj4ml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Serbian newspaper Blic<\/a> was the first to break the news about Djokovic&#8217;s withdrawal from the ATP Cup.\u00a0 However, the report fell short to mention whether he will travel to Australia to compete for the first Grand Slam of the year.<\/p>\n<p>The 20-time Grand Slam winner will not travel to Sydney &#8211; the host city of the team tournament &#8211; as initially planned. Instead, he will remain in Belgrade where he is doing charity work for his Foundation and spending quality time with his family. Djokovic is also training in Serbia&#8217;s capital rather than at his customary off-season training block in Marbella.<\/p>\n<p>With Djokovic out of the equation, Filip Krajinovic will take over as the No. 1 player in Serbia&#8217;s ATP Cup team.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">*\u201dnot going to ATP Cup 99%\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Sa\u0161a Ozmo (@ozmo_sasa) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ozmo_sasa\/status\/1474696745758121986?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">December 25, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h3>Is Novak Djokovic Vaccinated?<\/h3>\n<p>The report does not disclose Djokovic&#8217;s vaccination status. In fact, it posed more questions rather than answers. Djokovic himself remains tight-lipped when pressed to give accountability on the subject.<\/p>\n<p>Shortly after Serbia&#8217;s Davis Cup defeat at the hands of Croatia at the start of December, Djokovic <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=WX05AP41HtA\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">>candidly replied in the post-match press conference<\/a>, &#8220;You will be informed. I cannot give you a date, obviously, Australia is around the corner you will know very soon.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Even Craig Tiley doesn&#8217;t know if Djokovic is vaccinated or not. The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=RECl7ssiZTo\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">>Australian Open chief said,<\/a> &#8220;We would love to see Novak here. He knows he has to be vaccinated in order to play.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Tiley also expects the Australian Open to take place <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2021\/10\/07\/australian-open-quarantine\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">without any capacity limits<\/a>. However, everyone on-site including fans must be vaccinated against COVID-19.<\/p>\n<p>Last month Tennis Australia reached a unanimous decision with the Victorian state government to impose mandatory vaccination for all players who will take part in the Australian summer season.<\/p>\n<p>Djokovic is aiming to win an unprecedented 10th title at Melbourne Park. Should it happen, he will break the men&#8217;s Grand Slam record count of 20 titles. He is entered into the players&#8217; entry list for the Australian Open as revealed by the tournament organizers earlier this month. But his participation is a major question mark following this curious withdrawal.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Novak Djokovic and Benfica\u2019s handball player (the best, btw) Petar Djordjic in Belgrade today. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/U7lti3xjcQ\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/U7lti3xjcQ<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Jos\u00e9 Morgado (@josemorgado) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/josemorgado\/status\/1474724177659801606?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">December 25, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Djokovic was recently pictured on the streets of Belgrade on Christmas day. He casually hit tennis balls with the locals and posed for pictures. The\u00a0 34-year-old played a key role in steering his country to victory in the inaugural ATP Cup in 2020.<\/p>\n<p><em>Main Photo from Getty.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>World No. 1 Novak Djokovic has reportedly pulled out from the forthcoming ATP Cup according to a reliable Serbian source. The 16-team tournament which served as tennis&#8217; curtain-raiser in the past two seasons will kick off on New Year&#8217;s Day. Serbian newspaper Blic was the first to break the news about Djokovic&#8217;s withdrawal from the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2341,"featured_media":41854,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,7,2,9],"tags":[9448,205,11282,9870,22,13613],"class_list":["post-44501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-atp","category-australian-open","category-featured","category-news","tag-atp-cup","tag-australian-open","tag-covid-19","tag-craig-tiley","tag-novak-djokovic","tag-novak-djokovic-covid-19"],"modified_by":"Yesh Ginsburg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2341"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44501"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44501\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}