In an interview with GQ published this week, the 24-time Grand Slam champion said he “had some health issues” once he returned to his native Serbia and underwent toxicology tests to find the cause after his five-day detention in the Park Hotel in central Melbourne.

“And I realized that in that hotel in Melbourne I was fed with some food that poisoned me,” he said.

“I never told this to anybody publicly, but … I had a really high level of heavy metal,” he added. “I had the lead, very high level of lead and mercury.”

Asked if he thought it was the meals he was fed in hotel detention that made him sick, Djokovic replied, “That’s the only way.”

The Serbian player’s health regimen reportedly includes a strict gluten and dairy-free diet, morning yoga — and healing water from the so-called Bosnian pyramids, a pseudo-archaeological site in central Bosnia and Herzegovina that Djokovic has touted as “miraculous.”

The Australian Border Force has not responded to the former world No. 1’s comments. “For privacy reasons, we cannot comment on individual cases,” the Department of Home Affairs told BBC Sport.