Everyone in the clubhouse of tennis club LTV Almere is on Sunday 14 July 2019 for Roger Federer. Only Joey Dikker (30) is a dissident among the participants of the open tournament, who follow the Wimbledon final between Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer on a screen. When Djokovic makes a point with his encouragement, he is the lone supporter, who has to ignore the irritated looks of the people around him.
„You can compare it with watching Ajax against Feyenoord in Amsterdam and that everyone is then for Ajax. I had that feeling as a supporter. Federer is the most popular player ever. Fortunately, it was still pleasant in the clubhouse, it is not as fanatical as with football”, Dikker looks back.
At his tennis club, his friends have known for years that he is a fanatic Djokovic fan and can count himself among the ‘Nolefam’, as the oldest fan club in the Serb is called – it has now become a badge of honor. This makes Dikker part of a minority. Ask an average Dutch tennis player about their tennis hero, and it’s almost always Roger Federer, then nothing for a while, and then Rafael Nadal. Lately, the name of the great talent Carlos Alcaraz has also been buzzing about the tennis parks. But ‘Nole’ Djokovic is rarely mentioned. In fact, people often spontaneously start an argument about what is wrong with Djokovic.
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That antipathy for the Serb is about his playing and technique, which are often referred to as ‘mechanical’, with the nickname ‘Robovic’ regularly coming up. It’s about his emotional outbursts on the job and his refusal to be vaccinated against corona. He would also try too hard to be as popular as Federer, who was voted the audience favorite on the ATP tour nineteen times in a row, and yet also Nadal. Djokovic’s behavior is often labeled as ‘fake’.
The critical judgment of the general public is special for a player who has been number 1 the longest (a total of 369 weeks), has a positive balance in mutual matches against both Federer and Nadal and has won twenty grand slam tournaments. A player who looked like he was on his way to an impossible ‘calendar slam’ last year: winning four majors in a row in one calendar year. Although the US Open in 2021 turned out to be a bridge too far, Djokovic lost the final to Daniil Medvedev.
“I have the feeling that people in the Netherlands have a completely wrong idea of who Djokovic is,” says Vuk Trbojevic. “His character and emotion are not really understood here. They also do not find his playing attractive. I see that as a cultural difference between the Eastern Bloc and the Netherlands.” Trbojevic (24) grew up in Serbia and came to the Netherlands with his parents when he was nine. He had the ambition to become a professional tennis player, but had to give up that dream due to a shoulder injury. He reached the 49th position in the national tennis ranking.
As the figurehead of a Serbian tennis generation, Trbojevic calls Djokovic the reason why he dared to dream of a future as a professional. “People often forget that he is a child from the war. His father was in debt, which dragged him out of the war. Djokovic had to leave his two brothers, a lot has been invested in his tennis career. He always had to win, for his family. At the age of six, he said he wanted to be number 1 in the world.”
The way Djokovic plays has influenced Trbojevic on the tennis court. At important moments in a match, he mirrored himself to his great example. “That laser-sharp focus that you often see in Djokovic’s eyes. As a result, I did not get nervous on track and I was not distracted by peripheral matters.”
That antipathy for the Serb is about his game and technique, which are often referred to as ‘mechanical’
Joey Dikker has loved Djokovic since he saw him play in 2006. He was fourteen years old and attended the ATP tournament in Amersfoort with his father. He did not know Djokovic, but saw him win his first ATP title as a nineteen-year-old talent. Thicker was sold. “What attracted me was his willpower and the energy in his strokes. I’m not the most technically gifted player myself. But because I have that willpower, I often find a way to win. Even though I am 5-0 behind. That’s because of Djokovic.”
Thirteen years after Dikker was grabbed by that unknown Serbian tennis player, he experienced his best moment as a fan in the summer of 2019 in the clubhouse of LTV Almere. He sees how Djokovic is 8-7 behind in the fifth set and 40-15 for Federer, which no one at the tennis club counts on and hopes for.
Federer runs up at his second match point, after a ball that is too short. Djokovic punishes that with a beautiful passing stroke. Not much later, it turns out to be the decisive moment of the match, when Djokovic wins Wimbledon for a fifth time after an incredible comeback. Dikker: „How do you manage to keep your concentration and still win, while the whole stadium is against you? That’s what I thought in that cafeteria. That is so inspiring to me.”
Recovery from setback
Trbojevic recognizes Djokovic’s mentality, winning when everyone is against you. He gets the Serbian word inat to (literal translation: rancor). “Inat is achieving something when everyone says you can’t. Get your way at all costs. Djokovic has that. He really bites through during the match. He also doesn’t have to play well to win. He wins the important points. I think that’s because of inat.”
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When Djokovic is asked about his Dutch fans and the meaning of inat at the ATP tournament in Rome, he has to think for a while. The Serb, who wraps the Italian journalists in Rome around his finger with perfectly spoken Italian, says that the Serbian word cannot be literally translated into English. „If I have to pick a word, it is resilience”, says Djokovic with a smile. Resilience means resilience, or the ability to recover from adversity.
Diana van der Helm (52), IC nurse at Erasmus MC, became a fan of Djokovic because of his double-handed backhand, often considered the best on the ATP tour. Van der Helm started playing tennis eight years ago and paid particular attention to the way the Serb hit his backhand and how his footwork is. “The many negative reactions to Djokovic only triggered me after that,” says Van der Helm. “Because he has always remained the underdog, I have only become more fanatic as a fan. I am someone who is always against injustice, and I found out that Djokovic does a lot for charities and for children besides his tennis. I was really captivated by him.”
She visited the ATP Finals in London four times to see her hero play. “In his training, I was so close I could almost touch him.” Van der Helm is not bothered by the emotional way Djokovic sometimes behaves on the track. “He beats himself on the chest, kind of like a Neanderthal. Federer and Nadal don’t. They also almost never compliment opponents. Djokovic does, often after a nice ball.”
Corona perils
Djokovic has regularly been discredited in recent years. In the spring of 2020, during the pandemic, he organized a series of tournaments in the Balkans, in which he seemed to flout the corona rules. In the summer of that year, he accidentally hit a ball in the face of a linesman at the US Open, after which he was disqualified. Last year he threw his racket into the stands at the Tokyo Olympics. And last January, the unvaccinated Djokovic wanted to participate in the Australian Open with a medical exception, but was still expelled from Australia after a turbulent week in Melbourne.
Due to the corona vicissitudes, the Serb has already lost several sponsors. For example, Peugeot ended the cooperation. In terms of sponsorship income, Djokovic has always lost out to Federer, who, according to Forbes earned about ninety million dollars in 2021 (more than 86 million euros). Djokovic had to make do with about thirty million. Now that the pandemic has extinguished for the time being, Djokovic will again get the chance to play many tournaments. At Roland Garros, his first grand slam tournament of the year, he can take 21 grand slam victories, just like Nadal.
Vuk Trbojevic thinks Djokovic cannot do well with the general public anytime soon. “I’m not saying he’s an angel. Federer and Nadal misbehave less, but they are also quickly forgiven. It was bad luck that tennis players on the Adria Tour organized by him got corona. Djokovic had taken many measures. His intentions were really good.”
The American John McEnroe, former number one in the world, told the BBC, after Djokovic won his twentieth grand slam tournament at Wimbledon, which will change the view of the Serb in the future. He addressed Djokovic directly: “When your time is up, will you be judged by the number of followers on social media? On the number of fans with your shirt, shouting your name? New. You will be judged on your achievements in tennis. And you know what, as time goes by, they might even start to like you.”
Diana van der Helm: „He is just a very good person. It’s a shame people don’t want to see that. If you immerse yourself in him, you get to know a different side.”