Monitoring Desk
ISLAMABAD/MELBOURNE: Tennis player Novak Djokovic’s father said he could stay away from his son’s Australian Open semi-final on Friday, insisting he “wishes only for peace” after being filmed with fallows holding Russian flags.
According to the AFP, “I am here to support my son only. I had no intention of causing such headlines and disruption,” Srdjan Djokovic said after the images led to calls for him to be banned from the tournament.
Novak stance
Novak said that my family has lived through the horror of war, and we wish only for peace.
Srdjan Djokovic did not mention whether he would attend the Grand Slam final on Sunday if his son won Friday’s match.
On Thursday, a video posted to a pro-Russian Australian YouTube account showed Novak’s father posing with a man holding a Russian flag with Vladimir Putin’s face on it.
The video was captioned: “Novak father makes a bold political statement.”
AFP photographed another maninside a stadium during Djokovic’s match with a T-shirt bearing the Russian pro-war “Z” symbol.
Srdjan said he was outside with his son’s fans “as I have done after all of my son’s matches to celebrate his wins and take pictures with them”.
He said that “I had no intention of being caught up in this.”
