Australian Open director Craig Tiley says he told the Djokovic family to “be really careful” of getting caught up in disruptive political activity.
“I did spend a fair amount of time talking to the Djokovic family,” Tiley told The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.
Australian Open Tournament Director Craig Tiley Credit:Joe Armao
Tiley was responding after nine-time Open champion Novak Djokovic’s father Srdjan was recorded on Wednesday night while posing for photographs with pro-Vladimir Putin activists outside Rod Laver Arena.
In the video, Srdjan appears alongside spectators who are speaking Russian, carrying Russian flags and chanting messages of support for Putin. He appeared to say: “long live the Russians”, igniting a firestorm of international media coverage. Serbian journalists and Djokovic have since said the translation was wrong.
Tiley said he told the family: “My advice is that you have to be really careful because if this is an event of global significance, it’s a platform .
“When you have hundreds of thousands of people to come through the gate, you’re going to naturally have some people that are coming here with an intention to be disruptive, and don’t get yourself caught in the middle of that.
“And they completely understand that. The family were very good. They were upset that it was taken that way. There was no intention of it.
“His dad particularly does not support war, and they’re very focused on supporting peace.”
Srdjan Djokovic posing with the Russian supporters.
On Friday night Djokovic said the activists, some of whom held flags depicting Putin, had “misused” his father and that there was “no intention” to be associated with their demonstration.
“It was unfortunate that the misinterpretation of what happened has escalated to such a high level,” Djokovic said after his semi-final win over Tommy Paul.
“It has got to me, of course, as well. I was not aware of it until [Thursday] night. Then, of course, I was not pleased to see that.”
Tiley said the Open had more than 1000 accredited journalists and growing TV audiences particularly in China and the US.
“It does become a platform and that’s new for us. It never used to be like that.”
Russian flags and other items bearing Russian or Belarusian insignia are banned at Melbourne Park following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The invasion has gone on for almost 12 months and thousands of civilians have been killed, according to the United Nations.
“We took a position early as it related to Russia and we wanted to protect and didn’t want to disrupt the Ukrainian players in the management of that,” Tiley said.
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