Novak Djokovic, the world number one, fails in the exemption for the Miami Open

Novak Djokovic will not compete in the Miami Open, which begins next week, tournament director James Blake said.

World number one Djokovic is not vaccinated against Covid-19 and is currently only allowed to allow international visitors to enter the USA.

Those restrictions are due to end in April and the Serb had hoped to get special permission to play in the United States at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells and the Miami Open this month.

He was forced to withdraw from the former as he was unable to obtain that dispensation and Blake has now confirmed that Djokovic also failed in his bid to feature in the Miami tournament.

Blake said in an interview with the Tennis Channel: “Obviously we’re one of the leading tournaments in the world, we want to have the best players to play.

“We did everything we could. We’ve tried to talk to the government, but that’s out of our hands. We tried and he couldn’t play.

“Same result as Indian Wells where I know[colleague tournament director]Tommy Haas did as much as he could. We tried to get Novak Djokovic to get an exemption but it didn’t work.

“We’d love to have him and he’s our biggest champion, he’s won here six times. Unfortunately, that’s well above my pay grade.”

Djokovic’s resistance to vaccination saw him miss six major tournaments last season, including the Australian Open and US Open.

Since vaccination against Covid-19 is no longer required to enter Australia, he took part in this year’s Australian Open in January and won his 22nd Grand Slam singles title.

The 35-year-old, who suffered a first loss of the season to Daniil Medvedev in the semi-finals of the ATP event in Dubai last week, will return to clay from April 9 at the Monte Carlo Masters.