“It hasn’t been an easy season so far,” admits the 35-year-old Serb, who received a barrage of well-deserved criticism as the press reported all the lies with which he had tried to hide that he did not want to be vaccinated. . Already during the pandemic, in fact, it caused an outbreak of the virus in the Balkans when it organized a tennis tournament that ended with more than one party with a lot of players giving positive results. Djokovic went from running away from the studio when asked about the vaccine to publicly admitting that he had not been vaccinated or planned to do so, which closed the door for him to play tournaments in the United States, where he is required to be vaccinated to pass. the border. And stubborn as he is, he remains determined not to do so even though that means he won’t be able to fly to New York on August 29th. If he wins the next US Open at Flushing Meadows, Djokovic will equal Nadal with 22 Grand Slam titles. But for now the US authorities have no plans to make any exceptions with him. “I look forward to good news from the United States,” says the Serb, who believes the reality of covid-19 should allow the regulations to relax.
Djokovic has gone from being the circuit dominator in 2021 to falling into hell. The decision not to get vaccinated sidelined him, cornered him. He completely altered his schedule, as he could not participate in tournaments in the United States, where he used to put his game into action, such as the Indian Wells Masters 1000 or the Miami Masters. On his return to the slopes, in Dubai in February, he looked nervous. You have, facing the world. He needed time to focus on the game. In Madrid, the young Carlos Alcaraz cornered him, but a few days later the Serb finally won a tournament this season on clay, in Rome. At Roland Garros, however, he could not with a heroic Rafa Nadal, with the whole audience cheering the player from Manacor, turning his back on the Serbian. “It’s not easy to play like that, I notice people want to see me lose,” the player would admit. But the stubbornness has allowed him to raise his head at Wimbledon, the tournament he has already won seven times, one less than Roger Federer. On the grass of South London, Djokovic has felt champion again and has been the first man in more than 80 years to win the cup despite losing the first set in both the round of 16 and the quarter-finals, semi-finals and the final. “Certainly this year has not been like the last few years. It has started as it has started and it has definitely affected me in the first few months of the year. I didn’t feel great in general. I mean mentally, emotionally, I wasn’t in a good place, ”Djokovic explained after winning. The Serb is part of the club of the great controversial champions outside the courts, but brilliant inside. His coach, Croatian Goran Ivanisevic, argues that “few men can react like him. After the media lynching received, not everyone gets up.” Champion in 2001 at Wimbledon, Ivanisevic has helped the Serb a lot. It is one of those friendships across borders born in the 90s. Two untamed Balkans working together, as they have a lot in common.
“Now he’s suffered everything that has happened to him and he’s focused on the game again,” Ivanisevic said, though his game hasn’t been as solid as in other Wimbledon wins. Young Italian Janick Sinner managed to put himself two sets ahead, but the Serbian’s mental strength allowed him to overcome the challenge. “He’s used to suffering,” Ivanisevic says. If Nadal has managed to play with enduring physical pain, Djokovic knows how to build an armor against problems off the court. Born in Belgrade, he started playing near the ski slopes in the Kopaonik region in southern Serbia, where his uncle was a ski instructor and his parents owned a pizzeria for the customers of the slopes. Both his father, Srdjan, and his mother, Dijana, made his son a good skier, but everything changed in 1999. That year, after decades of violence in Kosovo, right next to Kopaonik, NATO it went into action bombing Serbia after accusing it of crimes against humanity. The ski slopes closed and the Djokovics left for Belgrade, where they had to spend some nights in the anti-aircraft shelters. The young player, who had already discovered tennis, trained for many months in an empty swimming pool they had near their home, as the tennis club in the New Belgrade area was closed for months. That time, when the player was 12 years old, greatly marked the character of a person who set out to be the best tennis player in history by building a complicated world of his own, where he has become obsessed with food. and by not letting into his body products he does not know. And from there he has jumped to reject the vaccine against covid, a decision that has left him without the privilege of being the player with more Grand Slam titles, for now, and has complicated his career. Waiting to see if he will be able to travel to the United States, however, Djokovic has shown that his game is out of the debate. What makes the tracks off, however, remains highly questionable.
