SYDNEY, Australia — The day before the Australian Open was set to begin, Novak Djokovic, possibly the greatest tennis player of all time, ran up against a group of determined opponents that no amount of talent, training, money or willpower could overcome.

澳大利亚悉尼——在澳大利亚网球公开赛开始的前一天，可能是有史以来最伟大的网球运动员诺瓦克·德约科维奇遇到了一群无论多少天赋、训练、金钱或意志都无法战胜的坚定对手。

He lost his final bid to stay in Australia on Sunday when a three-judge panel upheld the government’s decision to cancel his visa.

周日，他输掉了争取留在澳大利亚的终审案，一个由三名法官组成的合议庭维持了政府撤销其签证的决定。

More broadly, he lost to a government determined to make him a symbol of unvaccinated celebrity entitlement; to an immigration law that gives godlike authority to border enforcement; and to a public outcry, in a nation of rule-followers, over what was widely seen as Mr. Djokovic’s reckless disregard for others, after he said he had tested positive for Covid last month and met with two journalists anyway.

更广泛地说，他输给了一个决意让他成为不接种疫苗的名人特权象征的政府；输给了赋予边境执法部门上帝般权力的移民法；输给了在这个崇尚规则的国家里，公众对德约科维奇被广泛视为不顾他人安危行为的强烈抗议，他此前曾说，自己在上个月新冠病毒检测呈阳性后，仍与两名记者碰面。

“At this point, it’s about social norms and enforcing those norms to continue to get people to move in the same direction to overcome this pandemic,” said Brock Bastian, a social psychology professor at the University of Melbourne. “In this culture, in this country, a sense of suddenly upending those norms has a great cost politically and socially.”

“到这个时候，这已是关于社会规范以及为了战胜疫情让人们继续朝着共同方向前进而执行这些规范的问题，”墨尔本大学社会心理学教授布罗克·巴斯蒂安说。“在这个文化中，在这个国家里，这些规范突然遭到颠覆的感觉有着巨大的政治和社会代价。”

Only in the third exasperating year of a pandemic could the vaccination status of one individual be invested with so much meaning. For more than a week, the world gawked at a conflict centered on a controversial racket-swinger, filled with legal minutiae and dramatic ups and downs.

只有在新冠疫情使人恼怒的第三年，一名个体的疫苗接种情况才会被赋予如此重大的意义。一周多来，全世界都在紧盯着这场以一名有争议的网球选手为中心的冲突，它充满了法律细节和戏剧性起伏。

On Sunday morning in Australia, more than 84,000 people watched the livestream of the hearing in a federal court, many of them presumably tuning in from other countries.

澳大利亚时间周日上午，超过8.4万人观看了联邦法院听证的直播，其中很多人可能是在其他国家收看的。

What they witnessed was the saga’s bizarre final court scene: a six-panel video conference with lengthy arguments, in distant rooms of blond wood, about whether the immigration minister had acted rationally in exercising his power to detain and deport.

他们见证的是这个事件极其怪诞的最终法庭听证场景：六个屏幕的视频会议，与会者分别坐在浅色木头装饰的不同房间里，对移民局局长在行使拘留和驱逐权时是否理性进行冗长的辩论。

The chief justice, James Allsop, announced the decision just before 6 p.m., after explaining that the court was not ruling on the merits of Mr. Djokovic’s stance, or on whether the government was correct in arguing that he might influence others to resist vaccination or defy public health orders. Rather, the court simply found that the immigration minister was within his rights to cancel the tennis star’s visa for a second time based on that possibility.

快到下午6点时，首席法官詹姆斯·奥尔索普宣布了法庭裁决，他在宣布前解释说，法庭的裁决不是基于德约科维奇本身的情况，也不是基于政府关于他可能会影响他人拒绝接种疫苗或违抗公共卫生命令的说法是否正确。法院只是认为，在这种可能性的基础上，移民局局长有权第二次撤销这位网球明星的签证。

Just a few days earlier, Mr. Djokovic’s lawyers had won a reprieve from his first visa cancellation, hours after his arrival on Jan. 5 at Melbourne’s airport. As of Friday morning, he seemed to be on his way to competing for a 10th Australian Open title and a record-breaking 21st Grand Slam. But that initial case had never reached beyond procedure, focusing on how Mr. Djokovic was treated at the airport as border officials had held him overnight.

仅仅几天前，德约科维奇的律师们曾为他赢得了恢复签证的案子，他的签证第一次被撤销是在他1月5日抵达墨尔本机场几个小时后。到上周五上午时，他似乎已经踏上了争夺第10个澳网冠军和争夺破纪录的第21个大满贯的征程。但最初的案子从未超出程序，关注的是德约科维奇在机场被边境官员扣留了一整夜时受到的待遇。

In the second round, his lawyers argued that the government had used faulty logic to insist their client’s presence would energize anti-vaccination groups, making him a threat to public health. In fact, they argued, anti-vaccine sentiment would be aggravated by his removal, citing protests that followed his first visa cancellation.

在对签证第二次被撤销的上诉中，他的律师团队提出理由说，政府坚称让他们的当事人留在澳大利亚会激励反疫苗团体，并对公众健康构成威胁的说法存在逻辑错误。他们辩称，实际上，驱逐德约科维奇才会加剧反疫苗情绪，并引用了他的签证第一次被撤销后引发抗议的例子。

“The minister is grasping for straws,” said Nicholas Wood, one of Mr. Djokovic’s lawyers. The alternative scenario — that deportation would empower anti-vaxxers — “was not considered,” he maintained.

“移民局局长是在抓救命稻草，”德约科维奇的律师之一尼古拉斯·伍德说。伍德坚称，移民局局长“没有考虑”另一种情况，即驱逐德约科维奇出境反而会激励反疫苗者。

Mr. Wood also disputed the government’s claim that Mr. Djokovic, 34, was a well-known promoter of vaccine opposition. The only comments cited in the government’s court filing, he said, came from April 2020, when vaccines had not yet been developed.

伍德还驳斥了政府将现年34岁的德约科维奇称为知名的反疫苗支持者的说法。伍德说，政府提交给法庭的文件中引用的唯一证据来自2020年4月，当时疫苗还没有研发出来。

Ever since then, his lawyers added, Mr. Djokovic had been careful to say very little about his vaccination status, which he confirmed only in his paperwork for Australia’s medical exemption.

德约科维奇的律师补充说，那之后，德约科维奇一直很谨慎，对自己的疫苗接种状况缄口不言，只是在申请澳大利亚医疗豁免的文书中证实了未打疫苗。

“There was no evidence before the minister that Mr. Djokovic has ever urged any others not to be vaccinated,” they wrote in a court filing before Sunday’s hearing. “Indeed, if anything, Mr. Djokovic’s conduct over time reveals a zealous protection of his own privacy rather than any advocacy.”

“移民局局长没有呈交表明德约科维奇敦促过他人不接种疫苗的证据，”他的律师在周日听证前提交给法庭的文件中写道。“实际上，如果说德约科维在一段时间里的行为表明了什么的话，那就是他在极其认真地保护自己的隐私，而不是在做任何倡导。”

The case, though, ultimately turned on the immigration minister, Alex Hawke, and his personal views. Justice Allsop pointed out in court that Australian immigration law provided a broad mandate: evidence can simply include the “perception and common sense” of the decision maker.

不过，此案的最终焦点是移民局局长亚历克斯·霍克和他的个人观点。奥尔索普法官在法庭上指出，澳大利亚移民法给予移民局局长广泛的授权：证据可以只包括决策者的“感知和常识”。

Stephen Lloyd, arguing for the government, told the court it was perfectly reasonable for the immigration minister to be concerned about the influence of a “high-profile unvaccinated individual” who could have been vaccinated by now, but had not done so.

为政府一方辩护的律师斯蒂芬·劳埃德在法庭上说，移民局局长对“高调的不接种疫苗者”造成影响的担心是完全合理的，这样的人现在本可以已经完成疫苗接种，却没有这样做。

He added that the concern about Mr. Djokovic’s impact went beyond vaccination, noting that Mr. Djokovic had not isolated after he said he tested positive for Covid in mid-December, meeting instead with two journalists in Belgrade. The government, Mr. Lloyd said, was worried that Australians would emulate his disregard for the standard rules of Covid safety if he were allowed to stay.

劳埃德补充说，对德约科维奇影响的担心不只是疫苗接种，他指出，德约科维奇在表示自己12月中旬新冠病毒检测呈阳性后没有进行隔离，而是在贝尔格莱德见了两名记者。劳埃德说，政府担心，如果准许他留在澳大利亚，国人会效仿他无视防疫规定的做法。

“His connection to a cause whether he wants it or not is still present,” Mr. Lloyd said. “And his presence in Australia was seen to pose an overwhelming risk, and that’s what motivated the minister.”

“不管他想还是不想要这种联系，他与反疫苗事业的联系依然存在，”劳埃德说。“让他留在澳大利亚被视为构成巨大风险，这是移民局局长做决定的动机。”

The court sided with the government, announcing its decision without immediately detailing its reasoning.

法院宣布了支持政府一方的判决结果，但没有马上解释判决的详细理由。

While Prime Minister Scott Morrison welcomed the decision (“strong borders are fundamental to the Australian way of life,” he said), some legal scholars said the end result, and the back-and-forth that preceded it, should be cause for shame in Australia.

尽管澳大利亚总理斯科特·莫里森对法院的判决表示欢迎（他说，“牢固的边界对澳大利亚的生活方式至关重要”），但一些法律学者说，这个判决结果以及之前的反反复复，应该让澳大利亚感到羞愧。

“The saga has exposed much long-running dysfunction and injustice in the Australian system: excessively strict, byzantine and unpredictable entry rules, but paradoxically special treatment through exemptions for the rich and famous,” said Ben Saul, a professor of international law at the University of Sydney.

悉尼大学国际法教授本·索尔说，“这件事暴露了澳大利亚的制度中许多长期存在的失衡和不公：入境规过于严格、繁琐和不可预测，但与之矛盾的，又存在对富人和名人进行豁免给予他们特殊待遇。”

He added that the case showed how the immigration minister’s “god powers” were essentially “unreviewable by the courts” and often led to “the unnecessary, obsessive and cruel detention of foreigners.”

索尔补充说，此案表明，移民局局长“上帝般的权力”本质上“让法庭无法审核”，而且常常导致“对外国人进行不必要的、过分的和残忍的拘留”。

Human rights lawyers suggested that the reasoning behind the visa cancellation — made in the heat of an election year by a government struggling to manage the latest Covid outbreak — could even lead later to the suppression of free speech.

人权律师暗示，在应对最新一波新冠疫情上困难重重的政府，在即将进入白热化的大选年做出撤销签证的决定，其背后的理由甚至以后会导致对言论自由的压制。

Mr. Djokovic said he was “extremely disappointed” by the court’s ruling, but would comply and leave the country.

德约科维奇说，他对法院的裁决“非常失望”，但会遵守裁决，离开该国。

In Serbia, the decision drew another round of scorn.

澳大利亚法院的裁决在塞尔维亚引发了又一轮嘲讽。

“The Australian government’s conduct toward him has been utterly disgraceful,” Vuk Jeremic, the Serbian foreign minister from 2007 to 2012 who later served as the president of the United Nations General Assembly, said in an email.

“澳大利亚政府对待他的做法极为可耻，”武克·耶雷米奇在电子邮件中写道，他曾在2007年至2012年间任塞尔维亚外交部长，后来还担任过联合国大会主席。

He called the entire case an example of politicized harassment. “Novak is a victim of brinkmanship by shameless populists, exclusively driven by snap opinion polls,” he said.

耶雷米奇将整个案子称为带有政治色彩的骚扰例证。“诺瓦克是无耻的民粹主义者边缘政策的受害者，他们完全受临时民意调查的驱动。”

Recent polls have in fact shown that a majority of Australians supported Mr. Djokovic’s removal. Even some of the most die-hard sports fans have said that the world’s top-ranked male player never should have been allowed to come without being vaccinated.

的确，最近的民调显示，大多数澳大利亚人支持驱逐德约科维奇出境。就连一些最铁杆的体育粉丝们也表示，这名世界顶级男选手本来就不应该在不接种疫苗的情况下被允许来澳大利亚。

But in many ways, the Djokovic drama — with its squabbles over state and federal jurisdiction, its flawed communication from Open organizers, and all of the attention paid to a star while the average Australian couldn’t find at-home Covid test in pharmacies — has left nearly everyone involved looking bruised and foolish.

但从许多方面来看，这场对州和联邦管辖权争吵不休、公开赛组织者沟通失误不断、澳大利亚普通老百姓在药房里找不到家用新冠病毒检测盒，却把所有注意力放在一个明星身上的德约科维奇闹剧，让几乎所有参与者看上去很受伤，也很愚蠢。

Players and fans have now been left wondering how this year’s Open will be remembered: for the tennis, or for the “Djokovic affair”?

网球运动员和球迷们现在都想知道，今年的网球公开赛将给人们留下什么样的记忆：是关于网球的，还是关于“德约科维奇事件”的？

“It’s a tricky situation we’ve got ourselves into,” said Mr. Bastian, the social psychologist. “We have a strong sporting identity as a nation and the way that part of our identity gets represented in the world is important to us. If that is tarnished, we’ll take notice.”

“我们让自己陷入了一个棘手状态，”社会心理学家巴斯蒂安说。“我们的国家认同中有很强的体育精神，如何在世界上展示这部分的身份认同，对我们来说很重要。如果这个名声受损，那将引起我们的关注。”