Novak Djokovic threatens 'majority' won't play if quarantine continues at events

Novak Djokovic made a bold declaration saying that a majority of professional tennis players won't travel to events this season if they will be subjected to strict quarantines as part of the safety precautions before tournaments.

It may be remembered that the world number one was very vocal about feeling unhappy with the 14-day quarantine that participants were subjected to ahead of the 2021 Australian Open.

While still at the height of the novel coronavirus pandemic, the safety protocols were put in place along with rigorous testing, in order to safely allow the event to continue. Because of these precautions, several people were found to have been positive and were immediately isolated away from other participants.

Despite the relative success of these measures, Djokovic is still unhappy and blames the quarantine for several injuries that have befallen players at the event.

"This definitely is not good for players in terms of their well-being. Obviously it has something to do with these kind of circumstances that we were in, coming into a Grand Slam and a tournament before the Grand Slam right after 14 days or 15 days of quarantine," Djokovic said, as quoted by the BBC.

Djokovic himself suffered an abdominal injury which he says almost prevented him from taking to the court to compete in the second week of the event. However, he seems to have recovered well and is currently in the semi-finals after defeating Alexander Zverev in the quarters.

Johanna Konta, Mario Berretin, Rafael Nadal, Heather Watson and Grigor Dimitrov all complained of some form of injury throughout the past week. Of course, many of them have not been in active competition in the same level as they would have been in the past.

Djokovic thinks that further discussions have to be made if the season is to be continued. On the other hand, Zverev thinks that perhaps the solution is playing events at certain bubble locations to limit travel. "At the end of the day in Europe right now we can't have spectators, so what difference does it really make where we play the tournament?" he said.