As if it were not ominous enough that the doors were locked to Rod Laver Arena for Novak Djokovic’s training session on Tuesday, the video feeds were cut, too. The only live confirmation that the world No 1 was even in residence came courtesy of a drone hovering above Melbourne Park for Australian television. Goran Ivanisevic, his redoubtable coach, looked less than amused by the incursion, turning his own camera on the offending device in protest.

If these are the lengths to which Djokovic’s presence in an empty stadium is concealed, the hostility that awaits him at his first match in front of a full crowd can only be guessed at. Tennis Australia are already looking at heightening security for the tournament, fearing a repeat of the violence that erupted in the city centre on Monday night, when hundreds of Serbian fans took to the streets to protest at the government’s continued threats to deport their national icon.

To think, the Australian Open once curated an image as the “happy slam”, a place where players and supporters could start the season in blissful communion in the southern-hemisphere sunshine. But the Djokovic saga, still no closer to being definitively resolved as border force officials continue to investigate after he lied on his travel declaration, is threatening to poison this dynamic. There are genuine concerns that he will need to be protected by extra bodyguards from a Melbourne crowd almost unanimous in their condemnation that he is in the country at all.

Note the word “almost”, though. There are over 28,000 people of Serbian ancestry living in Melbourne, and a large proportion are likely, should immigration minister Alex Hawke permit Djokovic to stay, to converge on his matches to defend his honour. Their passionate support has, on occasion, been a recipe for trouble. At the 2007 Australian Open, 150 Serbs and Croats were ejected after taunting each other with nationalist slogans and brawling in the garden square.

This time, any unrest will be sparked less by intra-Balkan tensions than by the implacable antipathy many Melburnians harbour towards those resistant to vaccination. The language is telling: Louise Pleming, the leading Australian coach, claimed that Djokovic’s participation would “keep the Serbians and the anti-vaxxers happy”. Except Djokovic is more a vaccine sceptic than an anti-vaxxer, in the sense that he is exercising a personal judgment rather than proselytising a wider message against being vaccinated.

Such is the molten heat of the debate in Melbourne, where 93 percent of the population over 12 are double-jabbed, this distinction tends to be lost. The tenor of the nightly news is that Djokovic is a menace, endangering any Australian Open volunteers who might come into contact with him, even though Victoria is recording over 30,000 positive cases a day. And even if Djokovic is shown clemency by Hawke and allowed to remain, he will, for all practical purposes, be a pariah.

Here in Melbourne, more than perhaps any other major city in the world, the unvaccinated are shunned, social outcasts for whom any public mixing is closed off. This demonisation has been actively encouraged by public health officials across Australia. Dr Chris Perry, Queensland’s medical chief, delivered an especially dark warning, saying recently: “Life will be miserable if you don’t get vaccinated. You won’t be able to hide. It will be very hard for you to keep your job, and there will be nowhere to go for entertainment.”

If that sounds Orwellian, then Djokovic is about to live through every element of this harsh reality. Vaccination is such an article of faith in Victoria that proof of having had at least two jabs is demanded at every conceivable turn. At the typical Melbourne hotel, a digital Covid-19 passport must be displayed at check-in, then again at breakfast, and again to use the gym or swimming pool. It is little wonder that Djokovic and his team are renting a private house instead. While he might be at liberty to practise his trade, he will be afforded no chance to integrate into the wider community.

Emotions around Djokovic are running so hot that even the local politicians who once chastised him are wary of fuelling the fire. Daniel Andrews, the Victorian premier, revelled 12 months ago in targeting the Serb, ridiculing his “list of demands” as if he were the leader of an armed militia group, rather than a tennis player urging better quarantine conditions for the game’s rank and file. This time, Andrews was more circumspect, despite insisting last year that anyone who wished to come to the country as part of the tournament would need to be fully vaccinated. “I don’t issue visas,” he said. “That’s a matter for the federal government.”