News

Novak Djokovic COVID-19 Positive After Tennis Tournament and Shirtless Clubbing

By Kevin Kinkead

Published: Jun 23rd, 2020 · 9:54 AM EDT

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Let’s get it back to tennis.

World #1 Novak Djokovic tested positive for COVID-19 after organizing an exhibition tournament in Croatia and Serbia. His wife is also positive.

Here are some snippets from an official statement posted to his website:

“Everything we did in the past month, 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.

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 while the various tours are on hold due to the COVID-19 situation.

It was all born with a philanthropic idea, to direct all raised funds towards people in need and it warmed my heart to see how everybody strongly responded to this.

We organized the tournament at the moment when the virus has weakened, 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.

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. I hope that it will not complicate anyone’s health situation and that everyone will be fine.”

Joker is going into quarantine for 14 days.

The real eye-roller here is that Djokovic and some of the other players had a shirtless rager going on at some club in Croatia right before the tournament, video of which was shared by TMZ:

Comment vous dire que @AlexZverev @ThiemDomi @GrigorDimitrov @filipkrajinovic @Dutzee ont adoré l’accueil de @DjokerNole 🤔

Quizz: Qui fait la limace? 🥳

(Credits to 6 people on IG : Kovacevic_bg / majamalnar / aleksandar_kk / kosuticjo / bogunovicmilos/_milenamihajlovic_/) pic.twitter.com/CSmrUBznJV

— Benoit Maylin (@BenoitMaylin) June 15, 2020

I think we’ve learned two lessons here:

1. probably not the best idea to host an exhibition tennis tournament in the middle of a global pandemic
2. also not a great idea to do shirtless Euro clubbing before said tournament

Also, does anybody else find the Croatian rave scene fascinating? Seems like they’re a wild and crazy and fun-loving people. The video clip above reminds me of the viral footage from a few years ago, with the sweaty and drugged up dude doing crazy pelvic thrusts with David Guetta blaring in the background.

Here’s that awesome video:

 

View this post on Instagram

 

Being in the fucking zone (@Robjacobsen21)

A post shared by Total Frat Move (@totalfratmove) on Jul 18, 2018 at 2:17pm PDT

Gotta get over to Croatia one of these days.