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– Roland Garros (rolandgarros) June 11, 2023
These upheavals would shape the fate of the tennis prodigy. He would become the game’s most hopeful retriever, master of the big pressure points, likely favorite to win every fifth set, and now the best all-court tennis player of all time. He will also present to the world another face of his country. In this age of Djokovic, Serbia’s immediate recall wasn’t just about brutal war criminals tried by The Hague tribunal or Hollywood villains with cold eyes and murky Balkan undertones.
It can be argued whether Djokovic is the most adept human being to hit an obscure yellow ball, but there can be no debating his role in expanding perception around his country. The turbulent young nation’s cultural identity has been softened by the success of its most popular citizens. Serbia, with Djokovic as its ambassador, epitomizes calm, reliability and a relentless pursuit of perfection.
If you ever need to go under the knife, you want a surgeon like Djokovic. He is a player with no obvious flaws, who never panics and waits patiently for the tide to turn. If they are being honest, even Federer and Nadal fans would recommend Djokovic to play with them, if their lives depended on a tennis match.
The Belgrade of the 90s will make you realize that the pressure of saving multiple championship points is nothing, in case you celebrate your 12th birthday outdoors on a tennis court. Djokovic once gave a TV crew a guided tour of the place where he grew up. In that interview, he relived May 22, 1999: that was when NATO launched endless airstrikes to liberate Kosovo from Yugoslav forces.
A message from NOL3 🏆#Roland Garros @employee @employee pic.twitter.com/XDCLFozxIi
– Roland Garros (rolandgarros) June 11, 2023
As the kids gathered in the playground to sing “Happy Birthday” and the star among them prepared to cut the cake, an F-117 screamed overhead. The song stopped, a pre-teen birthday party, the dreaded death, was wrapped in an envelope of powerlessness. Those who celebrate life seemed to stare at death. It was an introduction to Djokovic’s matchday calm and the kind of pressure he faced as a pre-teen.
Again, early on during the four-month NATO aerial bombardment, late one night due to the sudden cracking sound, Djokovic’s mother would trip and hit her head on the room’s heater. Unconscious, father in panic, two brothers screaming – the trauma of that day is still fresh in Djokovic’s mind. The family, after regrouping, would scramble to reach the shelter. To keep up, a frightened Djokovic would trip and fall to the ground outside his home. Then a bomb will be dropped near him. The earth trembled beneath him and the memory of his approaching death lingered in his mind forever.
As time passed, Belgrade was planning its life keeping in mind the bombing schedule and by second guessing the next target for fighter planes. Djokovic’s coach, and someone he calls his second mother, Jelena Gencic, had been planning club training sessions in the bombed areas the night before, based on the assumption that NATO fighter jets wouldn’t bomb the same area on consecutive days.
As the air attack continued, Belgrade saw silver features even in the deathly trail of golden lines left by the stealth bombers. Bombing means no school and more time on court, says Djokovic. His good friend and contemporary, world number one Ana Ivanovic, had always been reluctant to sleep alone as a child. She was looking forward to the nights at the shelter where she could be close to her parents, siblings and grandparents. Generations of the 90s in Serbia often say that blowouts made them tougher, and prepared them for the challenges of the future.
“I was overwhelmed with wonderful feelings. I am very, very happy and very proud of her.” 🥹#Roland Garros @employee pic.twitter.com/7Ue5UDLXg4
– Roland Garros (rolandgarros) June 11, 2023
It would be naive to say that it was the horrors of war that made Yugoslavia a center for strong athletes. Even before the 1990s, Yugoslavia, with a smaller population than present-day Bihar, was known for its assembly line of world-class athletes.
The seminal book “Sport in Socialist Yugoslavia” cites the influence of the communist Soviet Union in the postwar period and the subsequent leap towards the Non-Aligned Movement as the reason for the nation whose stadiums were always filled with strong, healthy children running in the many state-sponsored facilities. Sport improves working capacity and defensive ability. It was also an affirmation of the “positive achievement of Yugoslav socialist transformation especially through successful participation in international sporting competition”, says the book.
🧡#Roland Garros pic.twitter.com/k2OpLzblL7
– Roland Garros (rolandgarros) June 11, 2023
Not only was the sport fun and games, it was also about a nation making a bigger point or a big spread of an ideology. Football matches were occasions for asserting regional identities and stadium stands were sites of protest or, on occasion, battlefields. It is said that it was the violence in a football match between Dinamo Zagreb and Red Star Belgrade in 1990 that started the Serbo-Croatian War, which eventually led to the breakup of Yugoslavia. With football hooligans acting as militia, stadium chants will be used as battle cries as neighbors turn into bloodthirsty enemies. Grudge games fueled by anger and heartbreak dominate the region’s sporting history.
At one point in his career, Djokovic also seemed to get caught. After the matches, he would give the three-fingered victory salute which was popularized by Serbian soldiers during their war against Croatia. But as he got older, he saw the light. Although he still can’t figure out why there is a bomber in the sky on his twelfth birthday. The scars didn’t go away, but he didn’t dig his nails into them. For some time now, he has been collecting money for flood victims not only from his own Serbia but also from Croatia and Bosnia. In the middle of the French Open, he wrote on the camera lens after winning a match: “Kosovo is the heart of Serbia. Enough violence.” Later, when some objected, he said, “Of course I realize a lot of people will disagree, but that’s what it is. It’s something I stand for. That’s all.”
“Don’t think it’s okay for anyone to get caught up in feelings of hate and anger,” he once said. Djokovic’s story teaches that anger and anxiety can motivate you to become great, but reconciliation and peace within can make you the best.
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