Novak Djokovic is being held in a quarantine hotel where guests have complained of moldy, maggot-ridden food as he awaits deportation from Australia

• Novak Djokovic is being held in a Melbourne quarantine hotel alongside a number of asylum-seekers.
• Guests have previously complained of being served moldy food and food teeming with maggots.

Novak Djokovic is being held in a quarantine facility also used to house refugees and asylum-seekers while he waits to appeal his deportation from Australia after he had his visa revoked due to issues related to COVID-19.

The Serbian had travelled to Melbourne on Wednesday to compete in the Australian Open after he revealed he had been given a medical exemption which would allow him to compete without being vaccinated against COVID.

Upon landing, however, it emerged that an issue with his visa meant that his medical exemption was not sufficient for him to be allowed into Australia.

The Australian Border Force released a statement Thursday morning Australian time saying Djokovic had "failed to provide appropriate evidence to meet the entry requirements to enter Australia" and that we would subsequently be held and deported.

According to The Daily Telegraph, the 34-year-old, was held at Melbourne airport overnight and was taken to The Park Hotel, a quarantine facility in the center of Melbourne's Carlton neighborhood, on Thursday.

The hotel is used by the Australian government to detain refugees and asylum-seekers, many who have been held for years, while awaiting their visas to be approved, according to Reuters. More than two dozen are there now, the news agency added.

Conditions inside the hotel have been subject to widespread criticism. In October, there was a COVID outbreak in which over 20 people tested positive, while in December, Australia's SBS News published photographs which it said showed food given to the detainees that contained maggots and mold.

"I was just shocked. The food they've been delivering is putting people in danger," Mustafa Salah, an Iraqi asylum seeker being held at the facility, told SBS News.

"Even an animal cannot eat this type of food."

Djokovic was originally set to be deported from Australia on Thursday, but according to The Journal, his exit has now been delayed until at least Monday after his lawyers launched a legal battle to keep the tennis star in the country.

Fans of the 20-time Grand Slam champion have since gathered outside the Park Hotel, while protestors have also gathered to demonstrate against the government's immigration policies and the use of such detention centers.

The original decision to hand Djokovic a vaccine exemption so he could compete at the Open was met with furious backlash from fellow tennis players and Australian officials, as well as the Australian public.

Australia has spent much of the last 22 months going in and out of strict lockdowns, with stay at home orders, quarantine, and curfews being rolled out across the country.

While 91.6% of Australia's over-16 population is now fully vaccinated against COVID, many people still cannot travel between states or globally because of the current measures.

"What we find so frustrating about Djokovic's vaccine exemption is that if you're a celebrity, rich or, yes, a tennis star, Australian federal and state rules seemingly don't apply to you," Hayley Peppin, a lifestyle and entertainment journalist based in Melbourne told Insider.

"It's a slap in the face to businesses, health care workers, and the general public that a tennis player can get away with something the government has enforced."