Novak Djokovic has revealed the difference of opinion between himself and his wife Jelena that played a role in his infamous 2022 deportation from Australian which saw him detained amid questions over his vaccination status. The Serbian serial champion spent five days at Melbourne’s Park Hotel as he fought his case to stay in the country after then-immigration minister Alex Hawke denied him entry. Djokovic lost his case and was forced to leave the country after having his visa cancelled by the Australian Government on ‘health and good order grounds’ amid pandemic border restrictions. But in his new documentary Novak Djokovic: The Wolf in Winter, the 24-time Grand Slam champion shared how a disagreement with Jelena over on Instagram post may have impacted his ability to play at the Australian Open that year. Djokovic claimed that he had been writing an Instagram caption on the eve of flying to Australian for the tournament when Jelena disagreed with its wording. As well as a Happy New Year message, Djokovic had captioned the photograph: ‘I’ve spent fantastic quality time with my loved ones over the break and today I’m heading Down Under with exemption permission. Let’s go 2022!! (bicep emoji)’. Novak Djokovic has revealed how a difference of opinion with his wife Jelena may have contributed to him being deported from Australian back in 2022 The couple disagreed over the wording of a post by Djokovic on Instagram where he openly revealed he had travelled to Australia with ‘an exemption permission’ Jelena revealed she disagreed with Djokovic openly declaring he wasn’t vaccinated against Covid-19 and stated that ‘from the moment he posted on Instagram, the hell opened”99 per cent of people don’t know what actually happened – they think that I was deported from Australia because I was not vaccinated, and that’s not true,’ Djokovic explained. ‘In order to travel to Australia, you either had to be vaccinated or, if you were not vaccinated, you had to give evidence that you had Corona in the previous six months. ‘I was not vaccinated, but I had Corona twice in those six months, so I was eligible.’So I’ve got the special exemption. I told my wife I want to post that on my Instagram before I leave. And she said, ‘There’s no reason to post that. You can just post that you’re, you know, departing to Australia, and you’re excited to go there, and that’s it.”Djokovic however did not heed his wife’s warning, and shared the caption with the inclusion of the phrase ‘exemption permission’. ‘He really insisted on saying out loud that he wasn’t vaccinated, which I just didn’t agree with,’ Jelena recounted. ‘I said, “look, it’s your choice, please don’t elaborate on it, because there are other people thinking differently”. And from the moment he posted on Instagram… the hell opened.’Djokovic was detained at border control, and kept at the airport’s immigration zone between 11pm and 9am the following morning, with his personal belongings confiscated. While not detailed in the documentary, the 39-year-old was embroiled in the ten-day legal battle appealing his cancelled visa, and briefly released to begin his preparations to take part in the Grand Slam. But the Australian authorities later found inconsistencies between Djokovic’s travel earlier that year and periods during which he was supposed to have been in quarantine – leading to a second visa cancellation, with the deportation upheld. Djokovic – who stressed that his position is not anti-vaccination but rather in favour of personal freedom – doubled down on his belief that his deportation was ‘all political’ rather than grounded in a specific breach. Djokovic admitted that Jelena’s commentary had been evidence of ‘another reason why you should listen to your wife’s instinct”Australia was one of the countries that had the biggest lockdown,’ he explained. ‘They didn’t want someone of a profile like myself, who is known in that country and everyone knowing that I’m not vaccinated, coming in their country, playing a tournament, staying for a month or whatever, and then leaving, where people from Australia were not able to come back home.’To some extent I do understand that they felt that pressure, but it was not my fault. Later on I find out there is another two people, one was a player, one was a coach, that entered the country based on the same medical exemption. ‘So it was all political. It had nothing to do with medical, it has nothing to do with anything, it was just political.’ Djokovic added that Jelena’s commentary had been evidence of ‘another reason why you should listen to your wife’s instinct.’ Last year while preparing to play the Australian Open, Djokovic alleged that he had been poised while staying at the Park Hotel ‘vaccine jail’. ‘I had some discoveries when I came back to Serbia,’ Djokovic told GQ.’ I never told this to anybody publicly, but discoveries that I was, I had a really high level of heavy metal. ‘Heavy metal. I had the lead, very high level of lead and mercury.When asked whether he believed it came from the food, Djokovic replied ‘That’s the only way.’A spokesperson from Australia’s Department of Home Affairs told GQ, ‘For privacy reasons, the Department cannot comment on individual cases.’