Australian Reporter Tony Jones Issues Apology to Novak Djokovic After Rude Comments, Says He Thought It Was Banter
Novak Djokovic has received an apology from an Australian reporter following some rude comments over the weekend at the 2025 Australian Open.
The 37-year-old tennis star skipped a post-match interview following his win against Jiri Lehecka, and it was due to some comments made by broadcast reporter Tony Jones.
“Novak is overrated … Novak‘s a has-been … Novak, kick him out… I am glad that they can’t hear me,” Tony said during a live broadcast on Friday night.
Novak then shared a video of why he skipped the post-match interview and how he felt about the comments made.
Now, Tony shared a public apology and explained his intent with the comments he made previously.
Keep reading to find out more…
“What’s been said the last 24 hours, what’s your reaction? Especially last night,” Tony was asked during a Monday morning broadcast. Which you can watch here.
“One of disappointment that it’s come to this. If I could give you a bit of a timeline here: the comments were made on the news on Friday night, which I considered to be banter, humor, which is consistent with most things I do whether it be the Sunday Footy Show or the Morning Show here. Having said that, I was made aware on the Saturday morning from Tennis Australia via the Djokovic camp that the Djokovic camp was not happy at all with those comments,” Tony responded.
“As such, I immediately contacted the Djokovic camp and issued an apology to them. So this is 48 hours ago for any disrespect that Novak felt that I’d caused. And as I stand here now, I stand by that apology to Novak. If he felt any disrespect, which quite clearly he does. Now I should also say the disrespect was extended, I guess in many ways to the Serbian fans,” he continued.
“Now, as you know, being here over the seven years, we’ve built up a nice rapport with the Serbian fans. They come here with the flags and they provide so much color and so much passion and there was banter, so I thought what I was doing was an extension of that banter. Quite clearly that hasn’t been interpreted that way. So I do feel as though I’ve let down the Serbian fans. Now, I’m not just saying this to try and wriggle out of trouble or anything. I genuinely feel for those fans.”
“If I could turn back time, and I know we’ve all got PhDs in hindsight, I think the one thing where I overstepped the mark, and this is certainly what’s really sort of angered Novak Djokovic and his camp, is the last comment I made in that back and forth with the crowd: kick him out. Now, I can stand here and put whatever spin I want on that, but it can only be interpreted as a throwback to the COVID years when he was kicked out [for his vaccination status]. Now that has angered Novak, which I completely understand now. It has been an unfortunate situation. It’s been one of personal angst for Novak. It’s quite clearly personal angst for me as well.”
Tony concluded, “But I just think the priority here now is to focus on the tennis again. He’s got an amazing match here tomorrow night against Carlos Alcaraz. I hope his focus can now be on that, and my focus is now the broadcast again.”