Opinion: On the verge of deportation from Australia, there are no winners in Novak Djokovic saga

You can take a small measure of satisfaction about the proudly anti-vax tennis star getting Australia’s boot in his rear end once again while recognizing that there’s something fundamentally wrong about a government using Novak Djokovic as a political pawn. 

You can acknowledge a country’s right to enforce its borders and vaccine mandates, even make policy on the fly in response to public sentiment, while admitting there’s more than a whiff of unfairness and capriciousness in the way it has handled the past week as the start of the Australian Open looms on Monday.

You can accept the premise that Djokovic poses virtually no risk to the Australian public while concluding that this mess, fundamentally, comes down to one thing: A stubborn, ill-informed man refusing to do what more than 97 percent of his peers on the pro tour and nearly every resident in the city where he wants to play tennis next week have done in getting vaccinated against COVID-19.