Tímea Babos on Her Bold Decision to Skip the Australian Open – Redefining Career Priorities

"Novak refused the vaccine, ready to abandon his career, a decision no other elite athlete would do. The world condemned him, criticized him relentlessly, even belittled him for standing firm. Yet he never wavered, standing firm in his conviction with a determination that still resonates. Now we are talking about those vaccines and they say that some of them caused problems. We were locked up like sheep for three years and we were manipulated. It was during the pandemic when he refused to get vaccinated. He said publicly several times that it was a decision he was making for his body, that he knew his body best and that he didn’t want to do that. And he was ready to end his career for this reason. He went all the way just to not get vaccinated. He never told anyone not to get vaccinated, he never told us not to get vaccinated. We all got vaccinated. He never did that in his life. He organized a tournament in Belgrade, he facilitated the vaccination of other players, but he did not get vaccinated and, for this reason, he was criticized." Goran Ivanišević

"I have become increasingly uncomfortable with the way the major socially defining issues have been handled since Corona. I've also talked to the people in charge there and emphasized that I don't want to participate in exposing dissenters to ridicule. Satire must not participate in narrowing the discourse. And now this is exactly what is happening again with the war in Ukraine. Narratives and positions of groups that are high up in the social hierarchy are being repeated incessantly, and at the same time the mood is being set against those who think differently. In my opinion, this no longer has anything to do with satire." Christine Prayon alias Birte Schneider