PARIS: Serbian world quantity three Novak Djokovic risked stirring up a political controversy on the French Open on Monday (Could 29) after writing a message about Kosovo following his first-round victory.
"Kosovo is the guts of Serbia. Cease the violence," 22-time Grand Slam champion Djokovic wrote on a digicam lens in Serbian.
Round 25 NATO peacekeeping troopers defending three city halls in northern Kosovo had been injured in clashes with Serb protesters on Monday, whereas Serbia's president put the military on the best degree of fight alert.
The incidents got here a day after NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg known as on Kosovo to tone down tensions with Serbia following clashes between Kosovan police and protesters who’re against Albanian mayors taking workplace in ethnic Serbian areas.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic stated that 52 Serbs had been injured on Monday, three of them significantly, whereas Kosovo President Vjosa Osmani accused his Serbian counterpart of destabilising Kosovo.
Serbia and its conventional ally Russia don’t recognise Kosovo's independence, and Moscow has blocked the nation's bid to turn into a member of the United Nations. Serbia nonetheless considers Kosovo a part of its territory.
"Kosovo is our cradle, our stronghold, centre of crucial issues for our nation … There are a lot of the explanation why I wrote that on the digicam," RFI radio quoted the 36-year-old Djokovic as saying to Serbian media.
The French tennis federation (FFT), which organises the occasion, informed Reuters that there have been "no official Grand Slam guidelines on what gamers can or can’t say. The FFT won’t be making any assertion or taking any stance on this matter".
Djokovic will hope to keep away from one other political distraction at a Grand Slam after he defended his father on the Australian Open in January when a video emerged exhibiting him posing with some followers holding Russian flags amid the struggle in Ukraine.
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