by Chris Bowers
The link with Ljubicic is an interesting one for the subject of nationality. In 2005 Ljubicic cemented his place as a national sporting icon for the new Balkan state of Croatia, when he won a record 11 out of 12 Davis Cup matches (seven out of eight in singles) to bring Croatia the title. Djokovic’s equally impressive singles record when Serbia won the Davis Cup in 2010 can be put neatly alongside Ljubicic’s achievement. Indeed, the two friends have arguably done more to put Croatia and Serbia on the map than any of their compatriots (with the possible exception of Croatia finishing third in the 1998 football World Cup). But one other thing binds them – they were both sounded out about playing for a different country.
Ljubicic escaped the carnage of the disintegrating Yugoslavia, fleeing his home in the Bosnian town of Banja Luka and spending time in war-torn Zagreb before fleeing to the safety of a family in Italy willing to provide shelter to a gifted young tennis player. A Bosnian Croat, Ljubicic could have opted for Bosnian or Croatian citizenship but, after five years residency in Italy, he would have had the option of playing for Italy. Because the club where he played cancelled his residency card when he left after three years, the option never materialised, although Ljubicic did play under the Italian flag when entered for tournaments by his club. He says today, ‘At some point I would probably have had a chance to decide if I wanted to become Italian, but the truth is I don’t really think I would have done it.’
Djokovic’s offer appears to have been much more concrete. In April 2006 Serbia & Montenegro, the last two remaining states of the former Yugoslavia which had given up the name ‘Yugoslavia’ in 2003, beat Great Britain in a Euro-African zone Davis Cup tie in Glasgow. Shortly after, it emerged that negotiations had taken place between the Djokovic family and the British tennis authorities during the tie about the possibility that the three Djokovic boys might qualify for residency and thus play Davis Cup for Great Britain. Details of the negotiations are sketchy and it’s not known who approached who. A spokesperson for the Lawn Tennis Association (the British national tennis governing body is the only one in the world that does not have the country’s name in its title!) said at the time that Dijana had approached the LTA, while it is generally accepted that the LTA offered the Djokovic family a lot of money to switch to Great Britain.
It’s important to understand the background for both sides. The British were facing another potentially humiliating situation in which they had the most prestigious tennis tournament in the world, which gifted a surplus of £25–30 million a year to the LTA, but no players to challenge for the title. They had enjoyed the Henman-Rusedski era. Both Tim Henman and Greg Rusedski had reached fourth in the world rankings at their respective peaks but both were in the twilight of their careers and, while there was a promising Scottish boy called Andy Murray on the horizon, there were (and are) no shortage of promising British juniors who never make the transition to the full tour. There had been a lot of fuss among British tennis traditionalists when Rusedski switched from Canada to Great Britain in May 1995, but it became muted fairly quickly (especially after he reached the US Open final in September 1997). Rusedski had clearly been of massive value to the LTA in helping to promote tennis to British youngsters and the British public, and his rivalry with Henman probably made both of them into more successful players than they would have been ploughing a lone furrow. Therefore, offering a sizeable sum to a player who could play the same mutually beneficial role with Andy Murray as Rusedski had played with Henman must have looked like good business for the affluent LTA.
From the Djokovic family’s perspective, it was a lucrative offer. Serbia had no tennis tradition, the country had shrunk from the six-state Yugoslavia to the two-state Serbia & Montenegro, and was about to lose Montenegro whose citizens had voted to secede. Srdjan had been knocking on doors for several years looking for funding and had come up with considerably more rejections than expressions of interest. Under International Tennis Federation rules (the ITF owns and runs the Davis Cup), living on British soil for three years would have been sufficient for Djokovic to play Davis Cup for Great Britain, even if the family hadn’t got British citizenship, and that qualifying period might have been even shorter if someone could have successfully argued that the break-up of Yugoslavia meant the country Djokovic was born in no longer existed. So the offer of funding and practice facilities in a mature tennis country must have been attractive.
But by then, Djokovic already had his contract with Amit Naor and Allon Khakshourian, so the financial need was no longer quite as pressing. In addition, the family had absolutely no connection with Great Britain. There was no emotional pull to Britain the way there had been with Rusedski, whose mother had lived the first six years of her life in the Yorkshire town of Dewsbury, and Rusedski himself had a British passport and had been living in south London for several years before opting to play for Great Britain. In the end, the offer was politely and quietly declined.
The offer to play for Great Britain may seem a small detail in Djokovic’s career, even a pedantic one – after all, there are lots of people who could opt for different nationalities on the basis of parentage, grandparentage or residency, and Djokovic himself could have played for Serbia, Montenegro or Croatia. But it’s important for Djokovic’s status as national icon. If he went actively seeking a different nationality, that would surely undermine his credibility as a Serbian flag-carrier. Yet all the evidence suggests that he listened to the offer but never really wanted it.
Speaking to the British tennis journalist Neil Harman in 2009, Djokovic said,
Britain was offering me a lot of opportunities and they needed someone because Andy [Murray] was the only one, and still is. That had to be a disappointment for all the money they invest. But I didn’t need the money as much as I had done. I had begun to make some for myself, enough to afford to travel with a coach, and I said, ‘Why the heck?’ I am Serbian, I am proud of being a Serbian – I didn’t want to spoil that just because another country had better conditions. If I had played for Great Britain, of course I would have played exactly as I do for my country but, deep inside, I would never have felt that I belonged. I was the one who took the decision.
All of which rings true except that last part – Srdjan is likely to have had the lion’s share of the decision to reject the offer, as Novak’s move towards greater independence from his father came later (even as late as January 2007 Srdjan only allowed Djokovic a credit card, not a cash allowance, so he could monitor his son’s spending).
Djokovic’s first touring coach, Dejan Petrovic, who was still Serbia’s Davis Cup captain at the time of the offer and who has dual Serbian and Australian nationality himself, believes the finances and functionality of the British approach could never replace the emotional pull of Djokovic’s Serbian nationality. ‘The LTA made a big offer,’ he says, ‘and the family thought about it very seriously. It was very attractive and I’m very happy he didn’t accept it. Novak being who he is, he’s very patriotic. From the 10 months I was travelling with him, I know how much Serbia means to him. After winning the first Australian Open [in 2008], he stood up on the balcony of the city hall in Belgrade to wave to thousands of well-wishers who had turned up on a cold winter’s morning, and I remember him telling me that was the ultimate for a sports person. He could never have had that as a Briton.’
A trawl through the newspaper reports of the time suggests Djokovic had been saying behind the scenes that he was considering the possibility of a move. But the British press doesn’t have the most reliable record for accuracy and frequently bases stories on rumour and is thus vulnerable to leading figures and their spin doctors floating ideas through the press. More importantly, Djokovic was well aware of all the sacrifices his family had made for him, so he probably felt it his duty to at least listen to what was on offer. Had the offer come a year earlier, who knows what he would have done, but both he and Srdjan were ultimately against it.
Nenad Zimonjic, who was the senior professional in the Serb
ian team that played in Glasgow, believes the LTA’s offer may have been engineered by the Djokovic family. ‘Maybe it was a way of saying to our country, “Listen, you have an unbelievable talent here, you should help it.” He used it as a lever, perhaps. And that’s OK – deep down, I don’t think he was thinking of taking different citizenship but I think he was expecting more support from his country, certainly more than he was getting at that time. He had unbelievable support from the people but the Serbian association didn’t help him. In fairness, it didn’t have much to help him with – I had to fund all my own travel.’
The most likely explanation is that the family’s attraction to the offer was based on what it would offer the younger boys, Marko and Djordje. They were both gifted tennis players, albeit not in Novak’s league, but Srdjan had made it clear that he couldn’t handle more than one world-beating prodigy in the family. Therefore, if Marko and Djordje were to get any chance of making it as tennis professionals, they would need some help from outside the family, the kind of help that just wouldn’t have come from Serbia. It’s interesting that the approach to the LTA is reported to have come from Dijana – as most of Srdjan’s efforts were directed towards Novak, it was left to Dijana to make sure the couple’s second and third sons weren’t left out, so the family’s motivation might well have been based on them, rather than Novak. Only when the story of family conversations round the dinner table is revealed will we know the answer.
With the benefit of hindsight, the decision to remain Serbian was a good one. While Djokovic was the youngest player in the world’s top 70 at the time the negotiations in Glasgow took place, there was no guarantee that he would scale the heights he has since scaled. To that extent the decision was a brave one and leaves his standing as a national icon for the nation of Serbia well and truly intact.
By the end of 2005, Djokovic was making sufficient progress that the equilibrium Ivan Ljubicic speaks of – between the top player and the younger No. 2 who is learning from the more established professional – was beginning to creak. Piatti was always clear that Ljubicic was the top priority, and Djokovic was beginning to feel he needed a coach who was focused solely on him.
The first friction came at the last regular tour event of the year, the Paris Masters, when Srdjan approached Piatti and said he wanted the Italian to devote more time to Djokovic. Piatti said Djokovic would be a great player to coach, but his priority was Ljubicic who was at the peak of his career. That was effectively the beginning of the end because Srdjan was, from then on, on the lookout for a new coach. ‘I saw Novak was not happy with me,’ Piatti says, ‘but I was with Ivan and he was No. 3. I didn’t want Novak to lose time, so I fully accepted his wish to find his own coach. I’ve been in tennis for 30 years and he’s the best player I’ve worked with. It was an unbelievable opportunity to work with him.’ Djokovic stayed on for another six months, but after the Rome Masters of May 2006 he broke from the Piatti-Ljubicic stable.
Ljubicic recognised Djokovic’s needs too, and when the split came, it was entirely amicable – Ljubicic and Djokovic have not only remained good friends but they talk with each other several times a week. And their friendship can survive a lot of ribbing. At a particularly stressful meeting of the players at the 2007 Australian Open, when the subject of anti-doping measures was occupying everyone’s minds, Djokovic broke some of the ice when he complemented Ljubicic on an incisive question and suggested his bald-headed friend be given a bottle of shampoo as the prize for the best question.
Djokovic’s run to the French Open quarter-final in May 2006, where he retired with breathing problems against Rafael Nadal after losing the second set, took him into the world’s top 50 and further emphasised the need for an individual coach. Interestingly, Djokovic received a phone call from the Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica to congratulate him on his achievement – it’s easy to forget now just how big it was for Serbia to have a Grand Slam quarter-finalist in those days.
In the run-up to the French Open, Djokovic’s agent presented him with a list of several possible coaches. One of the names on the list was Marian Vajda, a Slovak born in 1965 who had reached 34th in the rankings in 1987 and had won a couple of rounds at the 1991 French Open. He had gone on to coach the Slovak Davis and Fed Cup teams, and various individual players. His last one was his fellow Slovak Karol Kucera, who had retired after losing to Ljubicic in the 2005 Davis Cup final, so Vajda was a free agent. Djokovic picked his name off the list and asked to meet him.
Vajda tells the story that he was in two minds about whether to make the trip to Paris to meet Djokovic and his entourage but was persuaded to do so by his 10-year-old daughter Natalia, who was a keen tennis player herself (she has since competed on the junior Grand Slam circuit – as a woman, her surname is Vajdova). The two hit it off and thus began one of the most enduring player/coach relationships in modern tennis history.
Vajda got a sense of the potential and the challenge within a few weeks. After reaching the fourth round at Wimbledon, where he lost to Mario Ancic, Djokovic won the title on the Dutch clay of Amersfoort and then went to Croatia to play in the holiday resort of Umag. He reached the final on his ninth consecutive victory since Wimbledon but retired with breathing problems in the first set tie-break, gifting his opponent Stanislas Wawrinka with his first tour title. Whatever the tennis world may have made of it, it was pure melodrama. Djokovic paused several times to get his breath back during the first set, he sought medical advice at the start of the tie-break and had to be held around the chest to help him to breathe normally. After four points of the tie-break – and leading 3–1 – he suddenly fell to the ground and lay motionless. His father and a doctor ran out, checked him out and carried him to his courtside chair while his Croatian mother sat weeping in the stands. The crowd bore him no malice, warmly applauding the apology he made in his presentation ceremony speech. After all, he was half-Croatian and the first set had lasted 73 minutes, longer than some finals that are won decisively in straight sets.
The Davis Cup tie in September 2006 against Switzerland in Geneva was one of the first indications of some of the sideshows that were to accompany Djokovic for the next few years. It was Serbia’s first attempt at reaching the competition’s elite 16-nation World Group (you can’t win the Davis Cup if you aren’t in the World Group). It was only the second time Djokovic had come up against the runaway world No. 1 Roger Federer and it was the first time Srdjan got involved publicly in a matter that impacted on his son. In the run-up to that tie, Srdjan made some comments in the Serbian press denigrating Federer. Most of it could be put down to the kind of kidology that characterises the build-up to all sorts of one-to-one sporting contests, but it probably added a little to Federer’s keenness, especially as the Swiss maestro had by then rather lost the appetite for winning the Davis Cup and had begun to view the competition as a set of isolated weekends that he could take or leave as a way of spending a bit of time with his tennis mates, rather than as a series of ties leading to one of the most prestigious trophies in tennis.
After Federer beat Tipsarevic in straight sets in the opening match, Djokovic went two sets to one down against Stanislas Wawrinka in the second singles. If Serbia had lost that one, the tie would have been lost on the opening day, but Djokovic came back, winning the fourth set on a 7–3 tie-break and the fifth 6–4. Yet on several occasions he called for the trainer, which severely angered Federer. With Federer and his former flatmate Yves Allegro winning the doubles in straight sets over Zimonjic and Ilija Bozoljac, everything was set for Federer to play Djokovic in the first reverse singles. Federer was clearly pumped, and while the result might have been the same even if he hadn’t been because he had the ability to play sparkling tennis whatever the circumstances, this was a rare occasion for Federer when it was personal. Djokovic won just eight games and was the subject of Federer’s ‘he’s a joke’ tirade in the post-match media sessions (the full story is on page 166).
In retrospect, that tie was the las
t of an era for Djokovic and his country. It was the last tie contested by Serbia & Montenegro – henceforth, it was to be just Serbia. By the time Serbia played again seven months later, Djokovic was a top-10 player and the expectations were massive. It’s also interesting to note that the team that played Switzerland in September 2006 was the exact same team that saw Serbia to the final against Canada in September 2013 – in essence, Serbia has used just five players in its rise to the top of the team-tennis standings: Djokovic, Tipsarevic, Troicki, Zimonjic and Bozoljac. Sometimes having a small nation with not a great pool of players to choose from can deliver a settled squad that doesn’t happen when there’s a greater pool of riches.
From Federer’s tongue-lashing in Geneva, Djokovic moved on to Metz, where he won the tournament and with it acceded to the world’s top 20. He was a quarter-finalist at the indoor Madrid Masters, a tournament that allowed him to mend some fences with Federer, and he finished the year ranked 16. He picked up another title in Adelaide (the one Dejan Petrovic had tried to get him a wildcard for three years earlier) but then came up against Federer in the fourth round of the Australian Open. Although hyped by the media as a grudge match, Federer’s only concern was to show that he hadn’t beaten Djokovic on anger in Geneva, and he posted another straight-sets win, Djokovic this time winning 10 games.