THE room in which he was detained for 24 hours a day measured around 9 square meters with sealed and tinted windows located on a floor of a faceless five-storey building in which he’d been put on his own floor, separate from the rest of around 30 fellow detainees – some of whom had been incarcerated for almost ten years – in Melbourne.
The facility, the converted Park Hotel referred to as ‘Park Prison’ by its inmates, was utilized as an immigration detention centre by Australia’s asylum system, in which the male in discussion was held for entering, whilst unvaccinated, a country then in the throes of the Covid-19 pandemic – with the intention of participating in a sporting event hosted by the world’s most locked-down city in January 2022!
The subject, a tennis megastar had deduced that a medical exemption he carried would suffice for him to participate in the competition – alas, upon arrival, the Australian Border Force were to subject him to hours of interrogation, the cancellation of his visa, declaring him an ‘unlawful noncitizen’ and thereafter, detention!
The detention was an arm of a system which rendered him to feel like ‘the villain of the world’ – with conditions therein so dehumanizing that he struggled to sleep. Additionally, the food – which didn’t meet his gluten-free diet – was so grisly that it induced vomiting!
After some days detained there, it would take exposure by news media and a diplomatic flare-up between the star’s native country and Australia for attention to be brought to his and the other detainees’ ordeal – for the hotel’s closure and their ultimate release shortly thereafter!
Occurring whilst an adult, the detention wasn’t the first instance he had experience such an ordeal – with a previous one happening during 1999 whilst he was still a boy of 11 growing up in the Serbian capital of Belgrade where, under protracted NATO bombardments intended to force the Serbian military’s withdrawal from Kosovo, his family had to spend endless evenings inside a bunker built as an atomic shelter, whenever fighter jets launched sorties!
The eldest of three boys the progeny of Srdjan (a skier) and Dijana, his parents owned the Red bull pizzeria located adjacent to what he described as ‘the most beautiful tennis club in the world’ set against a mountainous forest where he’d spot rabbits running through the trees in a serene area named Kopaonik.
It was there in 1991 that he had first played tennis, aged 4, after his dad bought him a neon pink racquet which the youngster carried around all day, not wanting to put it down!
Residing in a besieged city didn’t deter the boy from carrying on playing tennis, with the aspiring player becoming an amateur ‘analyst’ of NATO’s bombing pattern who determined when was the safest time of day to be out on court. By then, he was now playing at the Partizan Tennis Club which per se posed a risk as it was located near a military school which often drew bombers to the area – a danger prospect which had his mother constantly on edge! “A boy like me, growing up in Serbia, becoming a tennis champion? It was unlikely and it became even more unlikely when the bombs started dropping,” he wrote later on.
“When you’ve been through a childhood like that, those kind of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) experiences, you lose all fears,” reasoned 18-times women’s singles titles Grand Slam winner, Chris Evert.
But this was no ordinary boy – rather, a prodigy whose path to his destiny as one of tennis’ Greatest of All Time commenced on the Kopaonik courts when Jelena Gencic, a tennis coach, started running sessions for children and was impressed by the then five-year-old player showing up carrying a large bag almost as big as himself containing his racquet, a towel, a bottle of water, a banana and wristbands.
Enquiring whether the bag had been packed by his mother and how he’d known what he’d need, the kid responded that he had packed it himself and that he’d taken cue from watching tennis on television!
Gencic informed his parents that theirs was a ‘zlatno dete’ (golden child) and inculcated the love and passion for tennis in him. Additionally, Gencic, who had lost a sister who was killed during the NATO bombing raids, instilled an appreciation for the importance of nutrition in the boy, relating to him how her erstwhile menteé, Monica Seles – Serbia’s first tennis Grand Slam champion, with 9 women’s singles titles – didn’t eat cheeseburgers or drink Coca-Cola! She also introduced the player to Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture so as to let him utilize the surge of adrenalin and the power of the music on court!
Furthermore, she encouraged him to learn languages (the player would later become fluent in English, French, Italian and communicate in Spanish, German and Mandarin).
When the fledgling player was 12, Gencic requested a Croat ex-player named Niki Pilic to accept him at his tennis academy outside Munich.
Srdjan and Dijana had lost their restaurant and had to endure a hardscrabble existence compounded by an economy shredded by war and sanctions when they enrolled their son at Pilic’s academy – at a discount!
Resolving to support his career, they persevered by borrowing money from loan sharks, with most of it spent on the young athletes’ training, food and travel – to the exclusion of kid siblings, Marko and Djordje. Such sacrifice was borne of Srdjan’s persistent belief that his eldest son would progress on to become the greatest of all time – a viewpoint he publicly disseminated as far back as the 1990s whilst the player was still a child!
Struggling to even feed themselves in Serbia, let alone continue maintaining the boy’s enrollment at the academy, the family’s financial situation grew so desperate that, whilst in Scotland in 2006 for a Davis Cup tie pitting Serbia against Great Britain, his parents approached the executive of the Lawn Tennis Association with a proposal for their son becoming a British citizen – if its bountiful resources would enable him to realize his career ambitions! By then, the boy had become both the Under–14s and Under–16s European champion, and it was unclear whether he was also in on his parents’ scheme – which ultimately didn’t materialize!
Much later, he would draw upon a pick-up quotation from his friend, the now late Los Angeles Lakers basketball player, Kobe Bryant which went thus: ‘Haters are a good problem to have. Nobody hates the good ones. They hate the great ones.’
This was against a background in which, despite his success, crowds from around the world expressed hostility in the form of booing, jeering, whistling and applauding his double-faults!
Later on, having become a father to son, Stefan (born in 2014) and daughter, Tara (born in 2017) awakened the inner child in him, so that despite the yearly circuit schedule necessitating him leaving them behind for weeks at a time – that only served to motivate him to win Grand Slams in their presence!
After dating their mother, Jelena Ristic, the phenom proposed to her on an early morning hot-air balloon ride during which another hot-air balloon meant to unfurl a banner emblazoned with the words, Will You Marry Me? caught fire and lost altitude!
The anecdotes herewith constitute the background which moulded an unusual individual from a pariah part of the world destined to become one of sport’s all-time phenomenal icons! The outsider who bequeathed tennis a once-in-history Big Three rivalry alongside Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal!
A patriot unafraid of voicing his political views (“Kosovo is the centre of Serbian history, the cradle of Serbian humanity” – he sent a video message, upon winning his first Grand Slam title in 2008, after Kosovo had declared independence); a humanitarian whose Foundation ensures that every Serbian child has access to an early-childhood programme; a player who has won more prize money (about $200 million) than any other in tennis history!
This is about the man behind the enigma Novak Djokovic!
(On August 4, 2024, the 24-time Grand Slam champion cemented his G.O.A.T status – after a career-long quest at becoming an Olympics champion – when he triumphed in the gold medal match against Spanish heir-apparent, Carlos Alcaraz, at the Paris games.)
A trade paperback, SEARCHING FOR NOVAK is published by Octopus and distributed in South Africa by Jonathan Ball Publishers.
Available at leading bookstores countrywide, it retails for R450.
