New Nadir - Djokovic Has Coronavirus
The Tennis Podcast
David Law
4.5 • 2.6K Ratings
🗓️ 24 June 2020
⏱️ 37 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The fallout from the Adria Tour continued on Tuesday as world number one and event organiser Novak Djokovic tested positive for covid-19. The Telegraph’s Simon Briggs joins Catherine Whitaker and David Law to talk through the situation.
Djokovic’s second statement of the day was better than his first, but which questions remain unanswered? Is Djokovic’s position as president of the ATP player council still tenable? How much damage has he done to tennis and to his own reputation? And where will this story go from here?
There’s also a quick chat about how Andy Murray looked on his return to tennis at the Battle of the Brits.
The Tennis Podcast is presented by Catherine Whitaker and David Law, and features Matt Roberts. It is produced weekly year-round, and daily during the Grand Slam tournaments. It is crowdfunded by listeners each December.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, this is Mary and Bartoli. I'm Matt's Belander. This is Mary Carillo. I'm Stan Ravinka. I'm like Newt. I'm Andy Murray. |
| 0:06.7 | This is Yannick Noah and you're listening to the tennis podcast. |
| 0:20.5 | Well folks, we said we might be back with an emergency podcast just a mere 24 hours after recording our last one and |
| 0:26.7 | back we are because there have been developments in the COVID-19 crisis that's been developing on the Adria tour. |
| 0:37.4 | Well, probably over the course of the past two weeks, but it's only presented itself to us over the past few days. |
| 0:44.2 | We've obviously been been following it extremely closely. We're expecting a statement from the World No. 1 |
| 0:50.8 | and one of the organizers of the Adria tour, Novak Djokovic today and we have had that statement. |
| 0:57.0 | In fact, we've had two statements from the World No. 1. I'll read you the first one just now. |
| 1:02.7 | It starts off by confirming that Djokovic has indeed tested positive for COVID-19 immediately upon his arrival in Belgrade. |
| 1:11.3 | He was tested along with members of his family and his team. He wasn't showing any symptoms and he says that his |
| 1:18.2 | result is positive as is his wife, Yelena's, his children both tested negative. He goes on to say everything we did in the past month, |
| 1:26.5 | we did with a pure heart and sincere intentions. Our tournament meant to unite and share a message of solidarity and compassion throughout the region. |
| 1:35.8 | The tour has been designed to help both established and up and coming tennis players from South Eastern Europe to gain access to some competitive tennis, |
| 1:44.4 | while the various tours are on hold due to the COVID-19 situation. It was all born with philanthropic idea to direct all raised funds towards people in need |
| 1:54.6 | and it warmed my heart to see how everybody strongly responded to this. We organised the tournament at the moment when the crisis has weakened, |
| 2:03.5 | believing that the conditions for hosting the tour had been met. Unfortunately, this virus is still present and it is a new reality that we are still learning to cope and live with. |
| 2:14.2 | I am hoping things will ease with time so we can all resume lives the way they were. I am extremely sorry for each individual case of infection. |
| 2:23.7 | I hope that it will not complicate anyone's health situation and that everyone will be fine. I will remain in self-isolation for the next 14 days and repeat the test in five days. |
| 2:36.6 | It was already going to be a busy day for the British tennis media because it was the first day of Jamie Murray's event, the Battle of the Brits. |
| 2:46.2 | But obviously with this huge story transcending the sport developing, it is an even busier day. |
| 2:54.5 | What does Simon Briggs want at about 9pm? He wants a message from David Law saying, don't close your laptop too soon. Simon, do you want to come on the tennis podcast? |
| 3:04.5 | Hello, Simon. Hi, can you hear me? |
... |
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