Novak Djokovic found himself embroiled in another massive controversy after his father Srdjan Djokovic was seen posing with a bunch of fans waving the Russian flag. Srdjan later clarified he mistook it for the Serbian flag, and had “no intention of being caught up” in disruption.

The video was later posted to one of the pro-Russian YouTube channels with the caption, “Novak Djokovic Father Makes Bold Political Statement.” Srdjan’s act cause massive outrage from Ukrainian players and fans alike. Many of them urged Australian Open to revoke his accreditation.

“I don’t know what the rules are, I don’t know what the tournament is allowed to do… but this kind of thing can’t be left unseen. It doesn’t matter who you are, nobody is allowed to do it,” stated Ukrainian tennis player Marta Kostyuk.

Srdjan didn’t attend his son’s semi-final clash against Tommie Paul to save himself and his son from further controversy. He is unlikely to be there on Sunday when Novak Djokovic will fight for his tenth Australian Open title, against Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece.

The world number four too came in defence of his father, stating the latter was “misused” by some people.”He (Srdjan) was passing through, made a photo, it has escalated. He was misused in this situation by this group of people. I can’t be angry with him or upset because I can say it was not his fault. He went out to celebrate with my fans,” Djokovic said to reporters.

The Australian Open chief director Craig Tiley warned the Djokovic family to be careful in future, as every little act gets magnified and sometimes misinterpreted in a tournament of such global significance.

“My advice is that you have to be really careful because if this is an event of global significance, it’s a platform,” said Tiley. “When you have hundreds of thousands of people come through the gate, you’re going to naturally have some people that are coming here with an intention to be disruptive, and don’t get yourself caught in the middle of that.”