The Tennis Australia chief executive, Craig Tiley, has declared he will not resign over the Novak Djokovic visa saga and rejected suggestions his governing body paid for the deported world No 1’s legal fees.
It comes as TA faces increasing scrutiny from players concerned the Australian Open’s voluntary Covid-19 testing protocol is exposing them to needless risk.
Tiley, who has remained largely out of the public eye throughout the Djokovic affair, was booed on Wednesday during a rare appearance at Kia Arena to mark Samantha Stosur’s final singles match. A few hours later he broke his silence in a tense interview with the tournament’s host broadcaster, the Nine Network, during which he sidestepped questions about the ill-fated bid to bring the unvaccinated Djokovic to Melbourne Park.
With the fallout has come calls for Tiley to stand down from his role, which also includes tournament director, forcing the TA board to issue a statement on Monday night supporting Tiley and acknowledging “lessons to learn”.
Tiley has found himself in the firing line over TA’s role in allowing Djokovic to fly to Melbourne under the belief that a medical exemption approved by TA and a Victorian government independent expert panel would be sufficient to enter Australia.
Tiley defended TA’s handling of the matter shortly after Djokovic was first detained saying “we were talking to all parts of government to ensure that one, we were doing the right thing, and the right process with these exemptions”.
Asked by Nine on Thursday whether he has or will consider resigning from his role, the 60-year-old said: “No. We put a statement out recently. I am very focused today on delivering a great event. I am proud of being able to stand up here and you can see what is behind us [at Melbourne Park].
“I am proud of what we have delivered so far. We have had four days of unbelievable tennis and we will have that for the next 10 days.”
Tiley also denied claims by the former mayor of Melbourne suburb Brighton, John Locco, that TA had footed the bill for Djokovic’s federal court battle to remain in the country, reported to be in vicinity of $500,000.
“I have seen those reports and we don’t really go into the detail of financial arrangements we have with players but those reports are simply untrue,” Tiley said.
The live issue at Melbourne Park right now is that of the lack of rigour around testing, which operates on an honesty basis and is compulsory only if players have symptoms. Dual grand slam champion Garbiñe Muguruza, world No 3 Alexander Zverev and British No 2 Heather Watson are among those to have questioned the procedures.
Accredited players, staff and media are provided with daily rapid antigen tests but Muguruza, who lost her round-two match to Frenchwoman Alize Cornet on Thursday, described them as an “optional thing”.
“Me, I test every two days by myself in my room,” Cornet said. “It’s not mandatory, I still do it.”
Zverev speculated there were additional players competing with Covid-19 than Frenchman Ugo Humbert, who said on Wednesday he had tested positive, and said he was “kind of doing a bubble for myself, simply because I don’t want to take any risks”.
“We are not getting tested, so I think if we would get tested there would be probably more positives than there are now,” the German said on Wednesday night after his second-round defeat of John Millman. “I’m somebody, I’m here to play the tournament, and I understand that there is a lot of cases in Melbourne, there is a lot of cases in Australia all around.”
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Watson said she had not been tested since the Adelaide International earlier this month and had not been asked to since. “No,” she said. “I think once you’ve done your day five, that’s the rules.”
All international players had a mandatory PCR test upon arrival in Australia and were required to have a second one between five and seven days later.
“There has been a fair bit written about that,” Tiley said. “Throughout the year the players have been travelling around the world. There have been protocols they have had to follow to do that. We are working closely with the men’s and the women’s and came up with a set of protocols that are more rigorous than their week in, week out travels.
“Coming into Australia every player had to test … on days five and seven they had to test. There is also mandatory symptomatic testing and every player is provided each day with a rapid antigen kit they can pick up either at the hotel or here onsite. That is really the program we have had going. So far it has worked well and been successful.”
