A kindergarten in the village of Javolik, Serbia, built by the Novak Djokovic Foundation. Djokovic is active in social justice issues that might surprise the far right, which has adopted him in its anti-Covid vax mandate crusade. Photograph by
Ванилица.

Of Novak and no-vax

February 4, 2023

Among those exulting in Novak Djokovic’s Australian Open triumph Sunday, Jan. 29, were members of the far right, who had adopted the world’s No. 1 male tennis player as the poster boy for their anti-Covid vaccine mandate crusade after the debacle last year in which he was deported from Australia for coming to the tournament unvaccinated, a moment that covered neither Australia nor Djokovic in glory.

Novak Djokovic and 'the courage to continue'

August 29, 2021

On Monday, Aug. 30, Novak Djokovic begins his quest to win the US Open and thus the Grand Slam — holding all four Slams (including the Australian and French Opens and Wimbledon) in one calendar year. Only two other men have done it (Don Budge in 1938 and Rod Laver in ’62 and ’69), along with three women (Maureen Connelly in ’53, Margaret Court in ’70 and Steffi Graf in 1988, the year after Djokovic was born). Graf remains the only person to win the Golden Slam — the Grand Slam and the Olympic gold medal that year.

Novak Djokovic auctions off a bit of personal history

September 19, 2018

Now you can swing a racket like a US Open champion — not to mention tell time like one. On Thursday, Sept. 20, Christie’s will conduct an online-only auction of the Head racket US Open men’s singles champion Novak Djokovic used to defeat Roger Federer in the Open tune-up, Cincinnati's Western & Southern Open.

Novandy and the Web we weave

November 10, 2015

Nothing like the BNP Paribas Masters final in Paris between Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray to bring out the haters and the opinionaters – as well as a few wits – on the Internet.

Nole won 6-2, 6-4, which left plenty of people unhappy about oh, gee, just about everything – Nole dominating tennis, Andy’s service problems, Nole’s supposedly “robotic” play, Andy’s seemingly fatal attraction to the net, Nole’s shouting, Andy’s cursing, their “boring” baseline rivalry, even the winner’s trophy, which looked like a small metal tree that could take out a few eyeballs. (More on that in a bit.)

For the haters, Andy is British and not Fred Perry. Nole is, well, Nole and not Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. The Net’s cloak of anonymity allows posters to voice opinions that in another era would’ve been defamatory and libelous, to say nothing of vicious. Wishing Nole would break an ankle or implying that he owes his success to steroids without any proof is stupid, mean and downright unbalanced. ...

Borna and Nole – in Vogue

August 23, 2015

Well, once again the gazillion-page (actually only 832-page) September Vogue is out, and, once again, the big issue for me is not the cover or the fashion but whom editrix Anna Wintour has anointed among male tennis players for the ritual dressing (and undressing).

This year, tennis-crazed Anna, the sly minx, is offering a kind of two-for-one and her own version of doubles. In the “People Are Talking About” section, rising star and teen dream Borna “Identity” Ćorić looks like he’s headed off to Harvard, standing at the net in a gray and white Canali sweater with gray J. Crew sweats. Coach Brad Gilbert has given the 18-year-old Croat the nickname but the question is, “Whose identity?” ...

Local hero in love: Andy takes a bride

April 13, 2015

Andy Murray, the No. 3-ranked tennis player, wed longtime love, animal artist Kim Sears, April 11 in a ceremony that apparently had the feel of a small-town royal wedding.

Scores of Dunblane residents and reporters braved the Scottish weather (“oh, the wind and rain,” as the folk song goes) to catch a glimpse of the bride and groom – she resplendent in a Jenny Peckham gown with a sweetheart neckline and crystal-beaded bodice and half-sleeves (is there anything more flattering than half-sleeves?) that showed off her figure; he equally dandy in a blue and green kilt. (Male tennis players: To paraphrase another song, ZZ Top’s “Legs,” “They’ve got legs. They know how to use them.”)

The wedding – which took place in Dunblane Cathedral with a reception following at Cromlix House Hotel, which Andy owns – was in marked contrast to last summer’s seaside nuptials for Novak Djokovic and his longtime love, Jelena Ristic. That was a private affair in Montenegro with coverage appearing afterward exclusively in HELLO! magazine, which paid a pretty shilling for the rights. (The money went to the Novak Djokovic Foundation.)

Whereas Andy and Kim just let it rip, and so the day had the feel of a hometown party in which everyone could participate. ...

Novak Djokovic, champion of peace

July 18, 2014

War, Novak Djokovic once observed, is the worst thing that can happen to anyone.

I sincerely hope he’s not destined to become a male Cassandra, bearing witness to the horror of the inevitable. But it certainly seems that way, doesn’t it?

In recent days, we’ve all been forced to bear witness to the kind of rage, terror and desperation that he no doubt experienced as a child of the Balkan conflict of the 1990s.

The former Yugoslavia at the 20th century’s sunset, New York at the 21st century’s dawn, Nigeria and Ukraine today, Israel and the Palestinian people eternally – the names change, the borders and media circus shift, but the stories are always sickeningly the same. Little boys mangled and murdered by mortar shells. Teenaged ones burned alive or kidnapped, never to return.

And now some 300 souls blown to smithereens on another ill-fated Malaysia Airlines plane, plucked out of the air as it were and scattered in pieces on the ground. And for what?