They say, professionalism starts early and for Novak Djokovic, his
career started early. He was born on 22nd May 1987 in Belgrade, Serbia
to parents Srdjan and Dijan in a family of three where he is the oldest.
His younger brothers are Djordje and Marko who are also following in his
steps as tennis players with great aspirations. Novak Djokovic started
playing tennis at the age of 4 and was later spotted by Jelena Gebcic, a
tennis legend in Yugoslav, when he was at age 18 and life would never be
the same again.
In his early careers, he played in Futures and the Challenger
tournaments where he won three of the type between the years 2003 and
2005. His first Grand Slam appearance was after appearance in 2005 at
Australian Open. He met with Marat Safin during this time and lost.
However, the commentators predicted Novak Djokovic had the potential and
would be the next Future talent in ATP, a prediction that came to pass.
Novak Djokovic currently resides in Monte Carlo with Marian Vajda as his
tennis coach. Since his joining the professional tennis players’ world
in the year 2003, he has been ever busy, grabbing five tournaments by
2007: Amersfoort, Adelaide, Metz, Miami Masters and Estoril. He has
played for the Grand Slam participation in the US Open in the year 2005
and 2006 up to the third round where he stopped each time. However, in
2006, he played in Wimbledon up to the fourth round.
At Hopman Cup, playing alongside Ana Inanovic, in 2006, Novak Djokovic
almost went to the finals but they missed it; the two have ever since
then been great friends. He is also friends with Andy Murray, a
professional tennis player. The year 2007 saw him play a semi-final in
the French Open but never progressed further as he was beaten by
Rafael Nadal who eventually won the title. In the same year, he played in the
4th round in Australian Open.
Novak Djokovic is a real sports man with his trivia being a height of
187 cm, body weight of 80kg, he is right handed and his career turned
professional in 2003. Novak Djokovic career has been great having won
sinfles records of 94-42, 5 single titles, double records of 9-20 and
his career has made him worth $2,465,905. He was ranked singles 4 by the
ATP ranking on 11th June 2007.
Novak Djokovic is an all court player with a play style of offensive
baseline play. His strengths have been found to be his ground-strokes,
defense and serve. His consistence is off both wings with his backhand
being his most preferred stroke. His speed has made his serve turn to be
his greatest weapon as he has won numerous free points. Novak Djokovic
first serve has been known to be a typical hit flat while his second is
wide. He prefers ball bouncing before any serve as well as disguised
backhand under-spin which is a drop shot and a sliced backhand. His
preferred equipments are the Head rackets.
