The Croatian maritime police did not allow entry into Dubrovnik early Sunday to the yacht 'Diana', owned by the family of Serbia's best tennis player Novak Djokovic, although the port authority in the Croatian coastal city had previously approved the vessel to sail in.

“We are very disappointed, as they knew who we were all the while, but have nevertheless kept us at the [maritime] border checkpoint for three hours, even though we had not committed any offense. They let us go only after we paid a fine, but at that point we lost our interest in going to Dubrovnik and went back to Tivat instead,” Srdjan Djokovic, the father of the Serbian tennis player, told Tanjug on Sunday.

On board the yacht were also Srdjan's wife Dijana and their sons Marko and Djordje, as well as crew members.

The problem at the border came up for rather obscure reasons, as prior to sailing out of the marina 'Porto Montenegro' in the Montenegrin coastal city of Tivat, Dijana's captain Ivan Zegura contacted the Harbor Master's Office Dubrovnik and was told that entry into the city was possible if the vessel did not go below the bottom of the island and did not enter more than 12 miles in the territorial waters of Croatia, in line with the relevant law.

“We did exactly what we had been told, but when we arrived at the Dubrovnik border checkpoint, we were told that the police would not allow us enter in the city as we had violated Croatian territorial waters. We were told that we should have first checked in at the Harbour Master's Office Cavtat and that we had to pay a fine in the amount of HRK 1,000 (slightly over EUR 130). The inhospitable manner of the police officers, not the fine, was the problem,” Zegura said.