Spanish club apologises to Djokovic over lockdown confusion

The Spanish tennis club where world number one Novak Djokovic was seen training in violation of the rules of Spain’s lockdown to fight the novel coronavirus pandemic has confirmed it had given the Serbian permission to play there.

Djokovic posted a video of himself on Instagram practising on a court at the Puente Romano tennis club in Marbella on Monday, the first day athletes were allowed to return to individual training in over a month.

But the Spanish tennis federation later released a statement to clarify that tennis players were not allowed to return to courts until May 11, and were only permitted to conduct individual training outside.

“We understood that professional athletes were able to train and authorised Mr Djokovic to use our facilities. After speaking with the tennis federation they made it clear to us he had to wait until 11 May to use the tennis club,” said the Puente Romano statement.

“We shared this clarification with Mr Djokovic and both parties have agreed to restart training from that day. We regret that our misinterpretation of the rules may have inconvenienced Mr Djokovic in good faith.”