MELBOURNE: Australia has cancelled the visa of female Czech tennis player Renata Voracova who entered the country to play in this month’s Australian Open, her government said Friday. Video images on Friday evening showed a woman who appeared to be Voracova peering out of the window of a Melbourne immigration detention facility. The detention centre, the former Park Hotel which holds 32 refugees and asylum seekers, is also believed to be the temporary home of tennis world number one Novak Djokovic, whose visa was cancelled this week. “Renata Voracova is in the same detention as Djokovic,” the Czech foreign ministry said in an email. The ministry said it was protesting against the detention but it added that Voracova, the world number 81, had agreed to leave Australia and not take part in the Open “as her training options are limited”. The 38-year-old Czech, a doubles specialist, was detained by the Australian Border Force, said reports by national broadcaster ABC, The Age newspaper and the Sydney Morning Herald, all quoting a government source. She was reportedly told she would have to leave the country soon. But it was not known if she would mount a legal challenge, as Djokovic has done, the reports said.
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