Novak Djokovic, how many languages do you speak?
‘English, French, Italian, Spanish. Also German as a boy, but I haven’t practiced it for a while».
And in which area do you think?
“In Serbian. On the field, I get angry in Serbian, I’m happy in Serbian, I’m ashamed in Serbian. However, I do speak Italian with the staff when I don’t want others to understand me. After all, almost all of them are Italian: Edoardo and Elena, the managers, Claudio, the physiotherapist, Marco, the sports coach…».
I understand that you are also good at Portuguese, Chinese and Arabic.
“A couple of sentences. It’s a matter of respect for the country. When they see you making an effort, they appreciate it. The more languages you know, the more value you have. I’m not saying as a man; I mean the value of relationships, the richness of friendship.”
What’s your earliest memory?
“The mountain. Kopaonik, in southern Serbia. My father took me skiing wrapped in a scarf when I was seven months old: obviously he told me that it wasn’t a memory but a trauma… One day I was alone in the forest, I have to ” I was ten years old and met a wolf.”
A wolf?
“A wolf. I felt a deep fear. I was told that in such cases you have to back away slowly without losing sight of him. We looked at each other for ten seconds, the longest time of my life; then he turned left and walked away. I felt a very strong feeling that has never left me: a connection of the soul, of the spirit. I never believed in coincidences, and neither did this wolf. It was expected. It was a short but very important meeting.”
Why?
“Because the wolf symbolizes my character. I am very attached to my family and try to be there for everyone. But sometimes I need to be alone. I have often been alone in my life. Alone with my mission, with my goals that I want to achieve. I stayed connected to this wolf. Also because the wolf is sacred to us Serbs. It is our totem animal. It is the symbol of a national tradition, an ancient belief that predates Christianity. A religion before religion».
Her father was born in Kosovo, she attended Mitrovica.
“And now I would like to go back to Kosovo with my wife Jelena to baptize our children, eight-year-old Stefan and five-year-old Tara. I know the subject is very sensitive. That the conflict is still there, currently not with guns, but the tension is palpable. I don’t want to get involved in politics, but for every Serb, Kosovo is the heart, the center of our culture, our identity, our tradition, our religion.”
How was your childhood?
“Total freedom. No phones: when the sun went down, that was the signal that I had to go home. The forest and nature were fundamental to my education. I also want my kids to be outside as much as possible. I got my first racquet when I was four; But none of us had ever played tennis, nobody knew what it was. We were a family of skiers, our idol was Tomba la bomba».
Then Jelena Gencic, the former tennis player who discovered it, came up the mountain.
‘My parents ran a pizzeria called Red Bull. They built the tennis courts across the street. i was six I don’t know if it was written in destiny that I should be a champion. I told her that I don’t believe in coincidences, nothing happens by chance and everything has a reason; but i believe in luck And it was lucky that Elena showed up. There was no place for me on the square and I watched the other children play behind the fence. Then I turned on the TV and looked for a tennis match and there was the Wimbledon final: Sampras defeated Courier. The next morning Elena came to me and asked me: Good morning little boy, do you know what tennis is? I replied: yes, yesterday I saw the Wimbledon final! And she: Do you want to try it?’
He tried.
“And Elena saw something in me. I learned everything from her. If I’m such a perfectionist, it’s because she was. He had spotted Monica Seles and made me think like this: do you want a Coca-Cola? Monica Seles doesn’t drink Coca-Cola. want a burger Monica Seles doesn’t eat fast food… She also made me grow as a man, she prepared me for life. My holistic approach (Djokovic says “truly holistic approach” in Italian), the attention to what I eat, how I sleep, how I rest, how I welcome my thoughts, that’s what I found in her. He took me to his house and let me listen to classical music…».
Which?
“Mozart, Bach, Vivaldi. He read me Pushkin’s poems. And he showed me the videos of the champions: Agassi’s backhand, Sampras’ serve, rafters and Edberg’s volley, Becker’s forehand and jumps, those jumps I never learned.”
Who was his favourite?
“Guga Kürten, the Brazilian.” The most charismatic, the loveliest. When I finally won Roland Garros in 2016, I asked his permission to celebrate his way: drawing a giant heart on the sand of Paris.”
You also met Emir Kusturica, the director.
“Yes, and he’s another guy I’ve learned a lot from.” I might disagree on some things, but he’s a real, honest man. Someone who has the courage to come up with his own ideas and defends them against media pressure. I know something about it too, given the pressure I’ve had to endure over the past three years…».
Are you referring to the vaccine?
‘I’ve suffered everything on my skin. A lot of people appreciated that I stayed consistent. 95 percent of what has been written and said about me on TV over the last three years is completely wrong.
They called her Novax Djokocovid.
“I’m not a vax sufferer and I’ve never said I am in my life. I’m not even a vaccine advocate. I am pro-choice: I defend freedom of choice. It is a basic human right to be free to choose what to inject into your body and what not. I once explained it to the BBC when I came back from Australia but they deleted a lot of sentences that weren’t appropriate. That’s why I never spoke about this story again.’
What was the place where she was held in Australia like?
“A prison. I couldn’t open the window. I stayed less than a week, but I met young people, war refugees, who had been there for a very long time. My case has helped shed some light, almost everyone has been released, and I take comfort from that. “A young Syrian was there for nine years.”
nine years?
“He’s in America now, when I come back this summer I want to see him again and invite him to see me at the US Open; I also feel connected to him. The Australian judge accepted my appeal; But the Minister of Immigration, who has the power to deport anyone without reason, expelled me. But I didn’t break the rules. I entered Australia with the necessary and correct documents as recognized by the judge of the first trial.”
But he wasn’t vaccinated.
‘I had Covid and was cured. I followed all the rules and didn’t endanger anyone. But once I got there, I became a political case that endangered the world. The system to which the media belongs required an audience that opposed the mainstream; and I have become. They labeled me “No Vax” which is completely wrong and still gives me a stomach ache. Then it turned out that the pandemic situation was very different from what was portrayed. Now the World Health Organization has written that the virus is no longer so serious that it is part of all the viruses that we have…».
But that’s precisely because there was no freedom of choice and everyone or almost everyone was vaccinated, don’t you agree?
“However, society was divided. And I was put in the middle and singled out as persona non grata. I was alone; But this time I felt like a sheep surrounded by twenty wolves. And one man alone has no chance against the big media. I forget easily, I focus on the positive things. I had Covid a second time. I’ve always accepted the rules, I couldn’t go to America and I didn’t go, I gave up two US Opens to stay consistent with myself. I didn’t speak because I saw that what I was saying was distorted. I went back to Australia and won. But I was disappointed. By the media and by many colleagues».
Which?
“I won’t name names. But when half of society is against you, you see people’s true colors. And many people have turned their heads. Many players and some organizers».
Let’s get back to training with Jelena. On the night of March 24, 1999 you were in Belgrade.
“It didn’t happen on the first night, it happened on the second or third.” The explosion, the crack of shattering glass, woke me up. My mother fell, hit her head on the heater and passed out. My father shouted: Nole, your brothers! I wasn’t twelve yet, but I was the oldest. I took Marko and Djordje with me and we went out into the street, there was no shelter in our apartment building, so we ran to my aunt’s house, it was three in the morning, there was smoke from bombs on the street. I fell, scraped my hands and knees, looked up and mine were gone, heard a rumble coming my way, looked up at the sky and saw two F-117s fly by. They fired two rockets at the military hospital, which exploded five hundred meters from us, the earth shook, everything shook… It was traumatic, even today I am afraid of loud and sudden noises, the fire alarm alone makes me cringe» .
Is it true that he continued to play tennis during the 78 days of the Belgrade bombing?
“It’s true. The schools were closed. What can you do about bombs? Not much besides getting on with your life. We got up at dawn, they never bombed at dawn. We went to areas where no raids were planned or to areas where raids had just taken place. For me it was like a game, but for my parents it was a terrible stress: fear, the queue for bread, the hour of electricity a day when my mother had to cook as much as possible… This war was an additional motivation. Half the world was against us, our country certainly didn’t have a good image; and I wanted to show the world that there were good Serbs too.”
What do you think about the war in Ukraine?
“The only thing I can say as a child of war is this: nobody wins in war.” War is the ugliest thing in life, the worst invention of man, the worst idea in history. I have seen two wars, the civil war in Yugoslavia and the NATO bombing of Belgrade, I have seen the suffering of my family and the poverty of my country. The war is much bigger than us, one can only pray to God that it ends tomorrow. Unfortunately, the war in Ukraine is progressing slowly and is becoming more devastating every day. There are destroyed cities, shortened lives, but there is also damage that is not visible and lasts over time. I read an article about the effects of war trauma: it affects health, especially digestion. I had microbiome issues, my career didn’t really take off until I discovered gluten and dairy intolerance, and it might be related to the war. But of course the worst thing is losing a loved one; and war leaves a void in every family. Therefore I cannot support a war against any country.”
Is it true that her father went into debt to enable her to play tennis?
‘We lost everything in the war, even the pizzeria. He showed me a ten-mark note and said: That’s all we have left. The tuition of the school opened in Bavaria by Niki Pilic, the former champion to whom I had been referred by Jelena, was five thousand a month. My father did it to make me realize that I have a responsibility. He went to the loan sharks. Criminal. Serbia was a dangerous place at the time of the embargo. They charged him 12.5 percent interest. Then they added: Are you in a hurry? Yes? So we do it on the 15th. Even my mother worked a lot, she suffered a lot.”
She has been with the same woman all her life and her name is also Jelena. how did you know her
“In a tennis club in Belgrade. I was 16, she was 17 and she was dating another tennis player. He won a tournament, lifted his shirt and wrote on the tank top: Jelena, I love you. We teased him, but inside I thought: Who is this Jelena? I didn’t take her away from him, they had already broken up. She studied in Italy with Bocconi, I trained with Riccardo Piatti in Monte Carlo, we stayed apart for a long time. Every now and then she came to me by train, I picked her up by car in Ventimiglia, how much time did she spend at this station … If she had started working, we would be lost with the life I lead went ; Giving up was the only way to be together. He worked three or four months; then he chose me. I am very grateful to you for that.”
Is it true that you stopped imitating your colleagues after Federer asked you to? «Federer didn’t ask me and I didn’t settle for imitations, this year at the Montecarlo Players Show I did Andy Murray, Medvedev and the rapper Snoop Dogg. I have never imitated anyone to offend, only to amuse myself. like “Seriously”. And then they asked me, like Lea Pericoli before Nadal in Rome in 2009: I imitated Rafa because he had won; If I had won I would never have made it, I would have thought: if I imitate him after I beat him, Rafa will kill me…” (Djokovic laughs).
How was your relationship with Federer really?
“We were never friends, rivals are not possible; but we were never enemies. I’ve always had respect for Federer, he was one of the greatest of all time. He had an extraordinary impact, but I was never close to him.”
Is it true that you were initially friends with Nadal and that ended when she started hitting him?
Anus. Nadal is only a year older than me, we are both twins, in the beginning we even went out to dinner twice. But friendship with him is impossible. I have always respected and admired him greatly. Thanks to him and Federer, I’ve grown up and become who I am. That will unite us forever; So I feel grateful to them. Nadal is a part of my life, in the last fifteen years I’ve seen more of him than my mother…».
And Fiorello?
“Too beautiful.” A phenomenon. Other off-stage comedians are sad; Even in private, he never stops joking and doing shows. When he fell off his bike I looked for him to be near him. I like everything it does, on the radio, on TV, the Fiore kiosk is a brilliant invention. When tennis ends, I want to be an actor too. However, in the theater».
Why are you a Milan fan?
“For my father.” And for Dejan Savicevic, the genius.”
You are known for your mental toughness, for the ability to play crucial points better than normal. Earlier he said: welcome thoughts. What do you think?
“Negative thoughts should not be rejected, but welcomed and allowed.”
In Italy they love it, elsewhere they often cheer against it. The maximum was the 2019 Wimbledon final, where he nullified Federer’s two match points with his serve in the fifth set.
“And finally I said the audience was screaming Roger-Roger and inside me the screaming became Novak-Novak. This final was one of the two games of life.”
What was the other?
«The 2012 final in Australia with Nadal: a physical fight that lasted almost six hours. In most tournaments, when I played against Federer and against Nadal, the crowd was against me. I said to myself: You have to develop the power in your head or you’ll never win. But turning the cheer into energy isn’t easy. It doesn’t always work. As Michael Jordan said: I failed, I failed, I failed; and I won».