Novak Djokovic Conquered Tennis. What’s Next?

After being expelled from Australia, Djokovic boarded a private plane back to Spain, where his family was staying. On the way, he says, they rerouted his flight to Serbia. “Why? Because they had information through lawyers that if I land in Spain, I’ll probably go through the same thing as in Australia,” he says. And so he and his family met up in Serbia instead.

When he got home, he says, “I had some health issues. And I realized that in that hotel in Melbourne I was fed with some food that poisoned me.”

Wait, what do you mean?

“Well,” he says, “I had some discoveries when I came back to Serbia. I never told this to anybody publicly, but discoveries that I was, I had a really high level of heavy metal. Heavy metal. I had the lead, very high level of lead and mercury.”

You’re saying from maybe the food or something?

He shrugs and raises his eyebrows. “That’s the only way.”

(When reached for comment, a spokesperson from Australia’s Department of Home Affairs stated, “For privacy reasons, the Department cannot comment on individual cases.”)

So you were feeling very sick when you were going back to Europe.

“Yeah, very sick. It was like the flu, just a simple flu. But when it was days after that a simple flu took me down so much,” he says, he had an emergency medical team treat him at home. “I had that several times and then I had to do toxicology [tests].”

Can I assume that you never got the vaccination after all that?

“No, no,” he says. “Because I don’t feel like I needed one. I just don’t feel like I needed one. I’m a healthy individual, I take care of my body, take care of my health needs, and I’m a professional athlete. And because I’m a professional athlete, I’m extremely mindful of what I consume, and I do regular tests, blood tests, any kind of tests. I know exactly what’s going on. So I didn’t feel a need to do that. Also, what is important to state is knowing that I’m not a threat to anybody. ’Cause I wasn’t. Because I had antibodies.”

So given everything: As you return this year, is it water under the bridge for you in Australia?

“Well, for my wife and my parents and my family, it’s not,” he says. “For me, it is. For me, I’m fine. I never held any grudge over Australian people. In contrary, actually, a lot of Australian people that I meet, I met in Australia the last few years or elsewhere in the world, coming up to me and apologizing to me for the treatment I received because they were embarrassed by their own government at that point. And I think the government’s changed and they reinstated my visa and I was very grateful for that. It’s a new prime minister and new ministers, new people, so I don’t hold any grudge for that. I actually love being there, and I think my results are a testament to my sensation of playing tennis and just being in that country. I love the feeling of a kind of sports fever that is in that country throughout the entire year, particularly the tennis fever during that month. So I can’t wait to go back. I moved on. Honestly, I moved on completely. Never met the people that deported me from that country a few years ago. I don’t have a desire to meet with them. If I do one day, that’s fine as well. I’m happy to shake hands and move on.”