Clay Travis On Novak Djokovic's Deportation, Australia's COVID Insanity, Covering Up Case Numbers

No. 1 ranked men's tennis player Novak Djokovic will not participate in the 2022 Australian Open — ending his bid for a record 21 Grand Slam titles after the Australian government rejected his visa early Sunday.

OutKick founder Clay Travis joined Full Court Press on Fox to discuss Australia's week-long impasse after rejecting the Serbian's medical exemption for being unvaccinated.

Clay discussed how the Australian government has been using the Djokovic story to mask up their own failures when it comes to a COVID-zero policy.

"Ultimately Djokovic made the decision not to be vaccinated and found himself in a really difficult position because of larger Australian political devices. Namely, COVID is skyrocketing in Australia, this country that initially adopted a COVID-zero policy," Clay said, keeping the government officials accountable for using Djokovic as an underhanded example for all unvaccinated citizens.

Clay added, "The politicians there need to find someone who is a convenient scapegoat to take away attention from the skyrocketing cases. I believe that Djokovic ended up being that scapegoat."

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"As long as everybody was focused on the national drama of whether he was going to play in Australia or not, they didn't have to acknowledge that every single day Australia has been setting all-time highs in new COVID cases," Clay noted. "And they didn't have to acknowledge here locally in our country the fact that Anthony Fauci has pointed out that everyone is going to get the Omicron version of COVID currently sweeping across the nation — whether they are vaccinated or unvaccinated."

Djokovic departed from Melbourne on Sunday and will ultimately miss the Open's start on Monday.

"Given the fact that Djokovic recently had COVID, he poses no danger whatsoever to the larger Australian populace. This was about sending a political message about how untenable being unvaccinated is, more so than it was any actual threat that Novak Djokovic brought to bear by being in Australia. After all, he was already there practicing on the court. What he wanted to do was get that 21st overall Grand Slam title to move past Nadal and Federer ...

"I think the window here, the metaphor, the larger context between Australia and the United States is so utterly fascinating in terms of the way that every country that shares quite a lot of similarities has behaved with COVID. And ultimately, I look at it and say, thank God for federalism."

Tune in to The Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show to get more honest and insightful coverage on America, sports and politics.

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