The World No. 1 has been on a tennis hiatus since last year’s ATP finals post which he flew to Australia only to be controversially deported back to Serbia amidst an Anti-Vax row.
The Serb has now been confirmed for the Dubai Duty Free tournament starting next week and arrived in Dubai yesterday. He now will start warming up today ahead of his first round match.
Meanwhile his Spanish counterpart and one of his biggest rivals Rafael Nadal arrived in Mexico. Nadal, who won this year’s Australian Open to become the only male player with 21 grand slams in the open era leaving behind Djokovic and Federer by 1 insanely amazing comeback in Melbourne.
The two are expected to finally be in the same tournament after nearly a year and might even clash against each other after almost 2 years as both want to make it to the Indian Wells in California.
“I’m proud to be on this stage,” Djokovic said after his wife Jelena gave a presentation about the foundation’s work with children. The serb seems excited to be back on the court and able to play tennis without any legal issues over his anti-vax opinions.
“It feels great, it feels great to be here,” said the Serb. “I always loved Dubai, I loved coming here. I had plenty of tennis success [in Dubai] and I’m excited to go out on the tennis court next Monday.
“I miss tennis, honestly, after everything that has happened in the previous couple of months. And of course, the purpose of the visit to the Expo is obviously promoting our foundation’s work. I’m just glad that we managed to combine the schedule and it allowed me to be here with everyone.”