Victoria's vaccine mandate will not impact Naomi Osaka's Australian Open title defense

Naomi Osaka has cleared the first hurdle on the road to defending her Australian Open title as she'll be one of the few players who won't have trouble entering the island nation next year amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Australian government recently announced that unvaccinated players will be barred from entering the country and thus won't be able to compete in the season's first Grand Slam.

A few months ago during the Italian Open, Naomi Osaka revealed that she had gotten vaccinated, unlike a large chunk of the men's and women's tour. Vaccination numbers with respect to tennis players are still low, as vaccine hesitancy runs rampant and neither the tour nor the tournaments have made vaccines mandatory thus far.

However, the situation does seem to be improving slowly. Players like Ashleigh Barty, Victoria Azarenka and Petra Kvitova have all been vaccinated and have urged others to get inoculated.

Azarenka, in particular, didn't mince her words, saying it's bizarre that fans have to get vaccinated to attend tournaments but players are exempt.

Azarenka's compatriot, Aryna Sabalenka, recently tested positive for COVID-19 during the BNP Paribas Open and had to withdraw from the event. The 23-year-old did mention that she's thinking about getting vaccinated soon following her ordeal.

While Naomi Osaka will be making the trip Down Under, Novak Djokovic's participation remains in doubt

Djokovic won his ninth Australian Open title this year.

Naomi Osaka and Novak Djokovic are the defending champions at the Australian Open, but at this point in time only one of them is certain to be allowed to compete next year. The Serb still hasn't revealed if he has gotten vaccinated or not.

Many top players on the men's tour have voiced their opinion against vaccination, but are slowly changing their stance. Andrey Rublev recently confirmed that he will be getting the vaccine, while Stefanos Tsitsipas also declared his willingness to get jabbed a while ago.

With just a couple of months left before the Australian Open begins, it remains to be seen how things will pan out.