{"id":489424,"date":"2025-01-27T16:36:02","date_gmt":"2025-01-27T20:36:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/?post_type=news&#038;p=489424"},"modified":"2025-01-27T16:36:02","modified_gmt":"2025-01-27T20:36:02","slug":"novak-djokovic-to-be-honored-with-statue-at-melbourne-park","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/news\/novak-djokovic-to-be-honored-with-statue-at-melbourne-park\/","title":{"rendered":"Novak Djokovic to be honored with statue at Melbourne Park"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Australian Open director Craig Tiley has expressed his desire for a giant statue of Novak Djokovic to be erected at Melbourne Park, recognizing the Serbian&#8217;s dominance at the tournament.<\/p>\n<p>Djokovic, who has won a record 10 Australian Open titles, has a complicated relationship with Australia, particularly following his deportation in 2022 over COVID-19 vaccination issues. Over the years, he has also had several clashes with Australian fans, officials, and the media. Most recently, Djokovic was booed by fans after retiring during his semi-final match against Alexander Zverev.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Craig Tiley boss of the Australian Open wants to erect a Novak Djokovic statue at Melbourne Park \ud83e\udd29<\/p>\n<p>Craig Tiley says, erecting a statue for the 10-time Australian open champion is a no-brainer and the Serb can win the local grand slam again \ud83d\udc4f\ud83d\udd25 <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/NovakDjokovic?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#NovakDjokovic<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/DAzZp66Fd6\" target=\"_blank\">pic.twitter.com\/DAzZp66Fd6<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 FirstSportz (@sportzfirst1) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/sportzfirst1\/status\/1883843640059220410?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">January 27, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Despite the controversies, Tiley believes that Djokovic\u2019s achievements at the Australian Open should be celebrated. Speaking to News Corp, he said:<br \/>\n&#8220;I would like to have a whole area full of statues of the great tennis players.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Tiley explained that Melbourne Park was designed with tennis in mind and attracts visitors from all over the world. He emphasized the importance of commemorating legendary players, adding:<br \/>\n&#8220;Every year we put up a new statue of an Australian, and this area is dedicated to tennis. It was built with tennis in mind and so many people come here from all over the world.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Acknowledging Djokovic\u2019s success in Melbourne, Tiley continued:<br \/>\n&#8220;I mean, he has won this event 10 times, and I still think he can win it again. I think any time we can recognize tennis or champions in the game, I&#8217;ll take advantage of that. Whether it&#8217;s Novak, Roger Federer, Serena Williams \u2013 the list goes on.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Australian Open director Craig Tiley has expressed his desire for a giant statue of Novak Djokovic to be erected at Melbourne Park, recognizing [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":137,"featured_media":489425,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false},"tags":[5443,16740],"news_category":[16714,16715],"gn_keywords":[2469,17855],"acf":{"announce":"The Serbian has won record 10 titles at the Australian Open and is the most successful player of the tournament ","video":[]},"rank_math_focus_keyword":"","rank_math_description":"","rank_math_title":"","rank_math_robots":"","rank_math_canonical_url":"","rank_math_facebook_title":"","rank_math_facebook_description":"","rank_math_facebook_image":"","rank_math_twitter_title":"","rank_math_twitter_description":"","rank_math_twitter_image":"","rank_math_snippet_shortcode":"","rank_math_primary_category":"","rankmath_seo":{"focus_keyword":"","description":"","title":"","canonical_url":"","robots":"","facebook":{"title":"","description":"","image":""},"twitter":{"title":"","description":"","image":""}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/489424"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/137"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=489424"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/489424\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":489426,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/489424\/revisions\/489426"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/489425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=489424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=489424"},{"taxonomy":"news_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news_category?post=489424"},{"taxonomy":"gn_keywords","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/gn_keywords?post=489424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}