by Chris Bowers
What’s notable is that most of those who have been on the wrong end of Srdjan’s behaviour have a very sympathetic explanation for it.
Vojin Velickovic, the gentle, almost avuncular tennis correspondent of Sportski Zurnal, says,
The first thing to say about Srdjan is that he was a very good father. He brought his three boys up to be polite and patriotic. Srdjan was very sure Novak was going to make it and he was very angry because no one else saw it. He expected the country, the federation, everyone to help, because he saw the future in his son. But to him, it seemed that no one cared until Novak became really big and that made Srdjan a bitter person, and that was the main reason for his reactions to be too furious. It’s true the federation did nothing to help him in his early years but they had no money, no interest, no ideas – they were just not able to do anything. For them, it was a big step if they had three boxes of balls. That was fine for many players but not for the likes of Djokovic, Jankovic and Ivanovic. So I understand Srdjan’s frustration, I understand his character. For me, he’s like a sportsman who gets angry in a game and then goes for a beer afterwards and it’s all OK – only with Srdjan, it takes a long time for it to be all OK.
Despite the high-profile run-ins, Nebojsa Viskovic has a similar assessment.
His father made him, nobody else did. Here there was no infrastructure, there was no money, he had no help from the government, from the federation – everything was from his family. From that point, I totally understand Srdjan but he doesn’t know how to deal with it. He can’t stop and enjoy it, he still hates everybody – he has so much hate inside him. People like Novak because he represents Serbia in such a beautiful way, but his family is down in the public’s estimations because they represent Serbia in a very different way. The hate comes from the time when he was asking for money and no one wanted to help. And he said, ‘OK, one day, when Novak is No. 1 in the world, then you’ll see.’ Now Novak is No. 1 – for Srdjan, it’s payback time.
The Belgrade-born Viskovic throws in one other hypothesis. ‘They are from Kosovo,’ he says. ‘It’s less cosmopolitan than Belgrade, it’s a little less modern, and the typical family from there is very paternalistic. Srdjan accused me because I wasn’t patriotic enough. Perhaps it has to do with Kosovo. Maybe people from Belgrade are not as passionate about Serbia as the people from Kosovo are, or perhaps it seems like that to people from Kosovo.’
A common theme running through comments about the way Srdjan conducted himself is that most of the decisions he made came good. Ivan Ljubicic says, ‘Srdjan is most of the time right but the way of showing it and trying to get it is wrong. He has also changed lately but obviously his manners are what they are.’
Bojan Bozovic was Djokovic’s doubles partner when the two were European junior doubles champions in their early teens. He believes at least part of the antipathy towards Srdjan is jealousy.
Srdjan had a very, very tough time, in his own life and in fighting for Novak, and in Serbia lots of people don’t forgive success. In Serbia there are a lot of people who haven’t been successful themselves and are jealous of others’ success. The federation didn’t help Novak when he was the best junior in Europe and Srdjan was very pissed off. Now they’re all happy to take money from his success and Srdjan doesn’t like that. Novak wants to play for his country but isn’t that bothered about the federation. Srdjan is a strong character who had a big role in Novak’s life. He gave up everything so that Novak had what he needed. They sacrificed everything for Novak. Everyone in the family has their own job – mother, father, Uncle Goran. Marko and Djordje suffered a bit but that’s normal in any family with a gifted first child – the second child always suffers a bit. But I liked Srdjan. He was very funny, he still is, and he had a lot of moments with my father that were very funny. But he had a goal and he didn’t care for other people – he just had a goal.
Dejan Petrovic makes a similar point.
The only thing that really concerns Srdjan is Novak, and sometimes, when you’re realistic about Novak, Srdjan doesn’t accept it. He has his own view and that’s it. He never tried to do a Richard Williams [father of Venus and Serena Williams] and coach, he only came to three tournaments in the 10 months I worked with Novak. He would ask questions sometimes but he never interfered. But until he got what he wanted for his son, he would never stop. The hunger for success and always the battle – that’s what made Novak what he is now. Serbia lacked coaching staff, so they were always striving to find someone better. Srdjan saw in me the possibility of taking Novak further. I got on well with Novak, I knew a lot about tennis, I had great coaches myself and, until then, Srdjan never left Novak’s side, he was always with him – he told me I was the only person with whom he would say, ‘Here’s my son, you can travel with him.’ I understand that at some point he would feel I had outlived my usefulness and he’d part company with me – I just don’t think it helped Novak for him to do it the way he did.
Ladislav Kis, the other coach who ‘lost’ Djokovic thanks to Srdjan’s intervention, says, ‘You can say many things about Srdjan but he was good for his kid. I don’t think Srdjan ever had any self-awareness, he never believed he’d done anything wrong. But he saw very early what Novak was and he went all the way until he got what Novak needed. Srdjan also never interfered in the coaching, so I have no complaint in that regard.’
And in an era in which two of the former Yugoslavia’s six republics are members of the European Union and others are applying to join, it’s easy to overlook the harsh reality of the economic and political situation in which Djokovic was a teenager. ‘Srdjan was in a situation that was pretty bad,’ says Nenad Zimonjic, the veteran of Serbia’s golden generation, who was born in 1976 so was an adult throughout the break-up of Yugoslavia. ‘The economy was bad, we’d had sanctions, you couldn’t get visas for certain countries. I was in a similar position as a junior. I could not really compete, I couldn’t play some junior events because I couldn’t enter the countries where they were taking place. These were tough times! Srdjan was fighting to get sponsors, fighting to get attention, so when he objected to journalists not giving Novak the coverage he felt he deserved, maybe it was just to get Novak more publicity, which would help get the funding. He certainly used me a lot, asking my advice on things, like whether to send Novak to the Pilic academy.’
Jelena Gencic made the point that Djokovic would never criticise his father. In public, that was true – the paternalistic nature of the Djokovic family has rubbed off on Novak to the extent that it would go totally against the grain for him to criticise his father in public. And there is also the fact that he is intensely grateful for what his dad has done for him.
But what happens behind the scenes is a different matter. It’s known that Srdjan is no fan of Djokovic’s long-term girlfriend and now fiancée Jelena Ristic, yet that has never undermined the relationship. So it’s quite possible Djokovic has had words in private with the family to tell his father to calm down. And on at least three occasions, he couldn’t keep them to the privacy of the family.
The first came at the 2008 Australian Open, when his family were cheering a little too loudly for many people’s liking. Djokovic picked up on this and muttered something to his box, after which the cheering was markedly more muted. What he said exactly, no one seems to know, but it was noted for the significance of him calming the cheerleaders. The second came just over a year later at the first Serbian Open in Belgrade. This was much less subtle – in fact, some say Djokovic veritably exploded at Srdjan. He certainly told him in no uncertain terms to leave, an instruction witnessed by several members of the media. Srdjan duly did leave and was seen strolling down the river bank a short while later, smoking a big cigar. The third came at Wimbledon in 2009 when Djokovic was playing (and losing to) Tommy Haas. Djokovic asked his complete entourage, including Srdjan, to leave the players box. Only his uncle Goran returned later in the match. When asked to explain what had happened, Goran’s only comment was that this wa
s a family matter and there was nothing to say publicly. Djokovic may well have been tacitly happy for these incidents to have been witnessed but he would never say or do anything that would humiliate his father, or indeed any member of his family, in public.
There’s one other person in the Srdjan Djokovic story whose role is crucial because it’s so low-profile: his mother Dijana. She has not had it easy, having to play the calm rock that holds the family together while her husband is often making headlines of an unwanted kind in the national press. It’s not a set of circumstances that makes her role in public particularly comfortable, and she seldom speaks to the media. She made an exception on her 50th birthday when she gave an interview to the Serbian newspaper Blic about her role as a mother, but by and large she is seen, not heard.
Djokovic’s doubles partner from junior days, Bozan Bojovic, says, ‘Dijana is a very strong and positive woman. She looked after a lot of Novak’s behind-the-scenes stuff. She had to be very tough.’ And Dejan Petrovic says of Dijana, ‘She was a great mother. I guess being in the house with four boys, she had to be. She was the one who made sure Novak had the right things to eat, the right clothes – in that respect she did a great job, hats off to her. And the two younger brothers are good kids. It’s not easy for her but she has a very strong relationship with Novak. In fact, in some ways, Novak probably holds his parents together.’
It would be nice to feel that, at some stage, Djokovic will have achieved enough that Srdjan can relax and doesn’t feel the need to exact revenge or payback on those who didn’t recognise his son’s talent many years ago. That moment ought to have come by now – by September 2011 Djokovic was the runaway world No. 1 and held three of the four major titles plus the Davis Cup. Srdjan could easily claim to have had the last laugh. Yet a year later he was in intensive care in a Belgrade hospital with a respiratory infection. For a while the doctors struggled to diagnose his illness and for a few days his life was in danger. But he pulled through and Djokovic ended the year by beating Federer in the final of the ATP World Tour Finals in London
Many have said Srdjan has emerged from his illness a calmer man. Maybe – he will have to be tested before we can be too sure, and remarks he made to the Serbian daily Kurir in July 2013 suggest the fire remains undimmed (he accused Federer of trying to discredit Djokovic and said Nadal only wanted to be friends with Djokovic while he, Nadal, was winning). Now that he has a respectable home and a comfortable mattress to sleep on, it would be nice to think Srdjan can enjoy the remaining years of Djokovic’s playing career without feeling the world is his enemy, but maybe that’s just not in his character. And for those of us who have not had to fight for everything and become as hard as nails in pursuit of our escape from oppression, drudgery or whatever we want to escape from, are we really entitled to condemn someone for an apparent inability to lose the mindset that was so essential to his son’s astonishing success?
There is no doubt that Srdjan played the pivotal role in his son’s rise to the top. To make an omelette, you have to break eggs and he was always going to break several eggs on his eventful journey. But did he really have to break so many? The question may well be unfair, but it does linger after even the fairest assessment of the volatile personality of Srdjan Djokovic and his so much calmer and more dignified eldest son.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE MANIA BEGINS
The switch of coach from Dejan Petrovic to Riccardo Piatti in July 2005 had already been negotiated by Srdjan before Djokovic left Paris for the grass of London. From the perspective of the time, it was a very smart move and there was no question Djokovic was walking right into a winning culture.
Ljubicic was having the year of his life – he’d started it by very nearly beating the undisputed world No. 1 Roger Federer in three finals and had gone on to beat the US Davis Cup dream team of Andre Agassi, Andy Roddick and the Bryan twins almost single-handedly in Los Angeles in the Davis Cup first round (he needed Mario Ancic’s help in the doubles but it was very much Ljubicic’s tie). In those first few months of 2005, it was easy to make the case that Ljubicic was effectively the world’s second-best player behind Federer.
Amit Naor, the Israeli agent who had signed up Djokovic, was also Ljubicic’s agent. He, Piatti, Ljubicic and Djokovic all sat down and worked out that they could work together. ‘I never had a problem with Riccardo working with other players,’ says Ljubicic. ‘I just don’t mind it, I’ve never felt that I need a coach 24/7, I just needed certain things. The way Riccardo works is not to tell you what you need to do but to explain things and get you to understand, so there’s always a time when you need to sit back and work out all the information and, once you understand, you are your own man, you make decisions, and that makes you a better player.’
It was easy for Ljubicic to be relaxed about the arrangement because he was the senior player. ‘It is really important within a team to know who is No. 1 priority and who is No. 2,’ he says, ‘because you cannot coach two top players. The perfect combination is one top player and then a younger player who can learn from the top guy, possibly already ranked high enough that they can play the same tournaments, so in that case it works without any problems. It does take some understanding by the younger player.’
Logically all fine and dandy, but what happens when the two players come up against each other? This is a perennial problem for the coaches hired by sportswear companies who suddenly find themselves with two players they coach going head-to-head – in that case, the coach generally doesn’t sit in the stadium. That was Piatti’s response when Ljubicic and Djokovic played each other in the Croatian capital Zagreb in February 2006. He opted to watch the match on television. It was Djokovic’s first tour-level semi-final and he took the first set on the tie-break, before losing 6–7, 6–3, 6–4. ‘I remember it was mentally really difficult,’ Ljubicic recalls, ‘but at the end of the day, it’s a tennis match and you have to adapt.’
Djokovic spent nearly a year working with Piatti and Ljubicic. In that time he made modest progress, rising from 94 in the rankings to 63. But it was behind the scenes that a lot of progress was being made that would help him later.
In one of their early practice sessions, Piatti noticed something. ‘I felt he was watching the ball in a strange way,’ the Italian says. ‘I can’t remember what was strange about it but I was aware that Goran Ivanisevic had had some problems with his eyes, and when he sorted them out, he won Wimbledon. So I asked Novak if he’d ever had his eyes tested. He said he hadn’t, so I suggested that when he next went back to Serbia he get them checked out. He did and found there was a serious problem which needed correcting.’ Since then, Djokovic has worn contact lenses and occasionally some stylish glasses in off-court situations. Also early on, Ljubicic suggested to Djokovic that he change the strings he was using. He was using synthetic on both his main strings and his cross strings. Ljubicic said to Djokovic, ‘Listen, all the best players except Rafa use a combination of synthetic and gut!’ The Croat suggested Djokovic use a hybrid of gut and synthetic and choose a better quality of synthetic string than the one he was using. Djokovic took the advice.
And in May 2006 Djokovic had a foot injury. Naor sought help from an Israeli physiotherapist Rafi Virshuvski, who in turn sounded out a contact, Tamir Kfir. Kfir is a life-long amateur tennis player who made his professional name in making orthotic insoles and orthopaedic prostheses. After analysing Djokovic’s movement, Kfir decided to design three different sets of orthotics: one for grass, one for clay and one for hard courts. Given that Djokovic relies heavily on the flexibility of his ankles, in particular to play powerful shots when at full-stretch (almost doing the splits) when most players would be happy just to get the ball back into play, the significance of Kfir’s analysis and solution can’t be overstated. After beating Roger Federer and Andy Murray in straight sets in back-to-back matches to win the 2011 Australian Open with some outstanding footwork, Djokovic threw his racket, his shirt, his socks and his shoes to the crowd �
�� but before throwing his shoes, he took out the orthotics. When asked whether he had special insoles, he said, ‘Yes. That’s the secret to my footwork. You got me there!’
Ljubicic recalls,
What struck me is that he really knew what he needed. He had physical needs, which he recognised. We shared a fitness coach but very quickly he figured out he needed a different approach to fitness work. The fitness guy we worked with, Salvador Sosa, is based on pure strength, explosive strength and power, whereas Novak always felt he needed to be more flexible, more soft, which you see on court. He was always about stretching, how flexible he is, and Sosa wasn’t working like that. I think he was really mature really soon. I think every tennis player reaches the moment where he becomes a man and, to him, it happened really quickly. With me, it happened when I was 23 or 24, with him it happened when he was 17 or 18, which is why he went up so quickly. He wasn’t really a joker. He wanted to become as good as he can. Once he realised who he really is and he was going in the right direction, he relaxed more and let go more that side, which is his personality. But when he was younger, he was more professional in the sense that he wouldn’t waste time on unnecessary things. He was 100 per cent focused on what he wanted to do.
Piatti says, ‘It was very easy to see the potential. When we started working, I noted his flexibility, his attitude on court, his technique, his mentality. He was so focused and so determined. Yes, he was young but in some ways very mature. He was also ready for the top level. Technically he was ready, physically he was good. I felt sure he was a No. 1 of the future; his parents had built him in the correct way for that role.’
Such determination and focus is all well and good but it still needs to be channelled in the right direction. Ljubicic believes Piatti did that channelling. ‘Riccardo helped Novak grow up. There were moments when he was lost. Now that he’s king of the world, it looks like he always knew what he was doing but, back then, it wasn’t really like that. He was a character. He travelled with a friend to Australia and Riccardo said maybe that was not the right thing to do. That was Riccardo’s way; he tried to think what was right for Novak. Novak was 18, he had to explore the world, but it didn’t take him long to work it out. I think he learned about himself. He learned more and more what he needed, he gained from the experience of being close to a top player, because I was No. 3 in the world at that time, so he could see what was needed to get there. He never needed to talk about forehands and backhands, though we did work a lot on his serve – he wasn’t really using his serve and, while we were working together, Riccardo and I were giving him tips.’