SPORT: Novak Djokovic will not be sent off but will play the Australian Open.

Judge Antho­ny Kel­ly ruled that Djokovic’s visa can­cel­la­tion order was “quashed” immediately.

The gov­ern­ment will also pay the ten­nis star’s legal costs.

The Serb expe­ri­enced a night­mare upon arriv­ing in Aus­tralia, after see­ing his visa dra­mat­i­cal­ly reject­ed by bor­der con­trol at Mel­bourne air­port, despite being cleared to play in the first Grand Slam of the year thanks to a med­ical exemption.

His med­ical exemp­tion was greet­ed with a huge back­lash in the ten­nis com­mu­ni­ty after refus­ing to share his vac­ci­na­tion sta­tus, hint­ing that he had not been com­plete­ly stung, which was a war­rant to com­pete in Mel­bourne at the Aus­tralian Open.

But as soon as he start­ed dream­ing of a record-break­ing 21st Grand Slam title, it quick­ly turned into an ordeal of hor­ror for the Ser­bian after being denied entry to Mel­bourne after bor­der offi­cials ques­tioned him for sev­er­al hours.

He has since been held in quar­an­tine at the Park Hotel in Mel­bourne, which has long been known as a poor immi­gra­tion hotel.

Djokovic’s legal team man­aged to delay the process of his depor­ta­tion to Ser­bia, with an appeal hear­ing being held in Mel­bourne on Mon­day at 10 a.m. (11 p.m. UK time).

An offer by the Aus­tralian gov­ern­ment to post­pone the case until Wednes­day was reject­ed, but a court order from Judge Andrew Kel­ly said the hear­ing would pro­ceed as scheduled.

Djokovic had faced a very anx­ious wait for the out­come of the hear­ing, but should now begin his preparations.

Despite this, gov­ern­ment lawyer Chris Tran said Aus­trali­a’s Immi­gra­tion Min­is­ter may con­sid­er revok­ing Djokovic’s visa again.

Under Aus­tralian Immi­gra­tion Law, the Min­is­ter has excep­tion­al pow­ers and dis­cre­tion to can­cel visas for any rea­son, but no grounds under which Djokovic’s visa could again be can­celed. ‘has been detailed.

The visa saga has gripped the sports world in recent days, with protests tak­ing place out­side his quar­an­tine hotel — both for and against the world num­ber 1 — while Djokovic’s par­ents and the Ser­bian min­istry of For­eign Affairs did not hes­i­tate on this sub­ject either.