The Career Of Novak Djokovic (Final Part)

Today concludes the final part of the look at the career of Novak Djokovic to date.

If you have missed any of the blog content, please scroll down to view previous days.

Place among the all-time greats

 

Following his tremendous success in the 2011 season, Djokovic began to feature on all-time greatest lists.

In late 2011, Rod Laver chose Djokovic as number 6 in his top ten male players of the Open Era. In April 2015, Henman offered another comment on Djokovic's standing among the all-time greats, saying "it's only a matter of time before he is considered alongside Federer and Nadal as one of the greatest players of all time". Having proclaimed him "one of the all-time greats" in November 2014, John McEnroe put Djokovic in all-time top five following his 2015 Wimbledon win, Djokovic's ninth Grand Slam title: "My top four are Laver, Sampras, Roger and Nadal but Novak is at number five and rising".

Djokovic is widely considered to be one of the greatest returners in the history of the sport, an accolade given to him even by Andre Agassi, who was considered to be the best returner ever. Though staying clear of best ever conversations, tennis coach Nick Bollettieri has continually been praising Djokovic as the "most complete player ever" and the "most perfect player of all time".

Tennis pundits have classified many of Djokovic's matches as some of the greatest contests ever, with the 2012 Australian Open final being considered the greatest match ever seen, as a testament to his greatness as a tennis player. Some longtime analysts claim that the Djokovic-Nadal rivalry ranks as the best rivalry in tennis history primarily because of the quality of matches they produce. 

Playing style and equipment 

Djokovic is an all-court player with emphasis on aggressive baseline play. His groundstrokes from both wings are consistent, deep, and penetrating. His backhand is widely regarded as one of the best in today's game. His best shot is his backhand down the line, with great pace and precision. He is also known as one of the greatest movers on the court with superior agility, court coverage and defensive ability, which allows him to hit winners from seemingly defensive positions. After great technical difficulties during the 2009 season, his serve is one of his major weapons again, winning him many free points; his first serve is typically hit flat, while he prefers to slice and kick his second serves wide.

Djokovic commented on the modern style of play, including his own, in interview with Jim Courier after his semifinal win against Andy Murray in the 2012 Australian Open tournament.

Entering the pro circuit, Djokovic used the Head Liquidmetal Radical, but changed sponsors to Wilson in 2005. He couldn’t find a Wilson racquet he liked, so Wilson agreed to make him a custom racquet to match his previous one with Head. After the 2008 season, Djokovic re-signed with Head, and debuted a new paint job of the Head YouTek Speed Pro at the 2009 Australian Open. He then switched to the Head YouTek IG Speed  paint job in 2011, and in 2013, he again updated his paint job to the Head Graphene Speed Pro, which included an extensive promotional campaign. Djokovic uses a hybrid of Head Natural Gut  in the mains and Luxilon Big Banger ALU Power Rough  in the crosses. He also uses Head Synthetic Leather Grip as a replacement grip. In 2012, Djokovic appeared in a television commercial with Maria Sharapova promoting the use of Head rackets for many techniques such as golf and ten-pin bowling.

In assessing Djokovic's 2011 season, Jimmy Connors said that Djokovic gives his opponents problems by playing "a little bit old-school, taking the ball earlier, catching the ball on the rise,  driving the ball flat." Connors adds that a lot of the topspin that Djokovic's opponents drive at him comes right into his zone, thus his ability to turn defense into offense well.

Coaching and personal team

  

In the period 2004 and 2005, Djokovic was coached by Dejan Petrovic. From fall 2005 until June 2006, he was coached by Riccardo Piatti who divided his time between the 18-year-old and Ivan Ljubičić. Player and coach reportedly parted ways over the latter's refusal to work full-time with Djokovic.

Since June 2006, Djokovic has been coached by Slovakian former professional tennis player Marián Vajda. They met for the first time during that year's French Open, after which Vajda got hired to be the 19-year-old's coach. On occasion Djokovic employed additional coaches on part-time basis: in 2007, during the spring hardcourt season, he worked with Australian doubles ace Mark Woodforde with specific emphasis on volleys and net play while from August 2009 until April 2010 American Todd Martin joined the coaching team, a period marked by his ill-fated attempt to change Djokovic's serve motion.

Since early 2007, Djokovic has been working with physiotherapist Miljan Amanović who was previously employed by Red Star Belgrade and NBA player Vladimir Radmanović. 

From the fall 2006, Djokovic had an Israeli fitness coach Ronen Bega, but the two parted ways during spring 2009 since Djokovic decided to make a change after identifying his conditioning as a weakness in his game following continual losses to Nadal. In April 2009, ahead of the Rome Masters, Djokovic hired Austrian Gebhard Phil-Gritsch  to join the team in fitness coach capacity.

In July 2010, before the Davis Cup clash away at Croatia, Djokovic made another addition to his team – nutritionist Igor Četojević who additionally focuses on Chinese medicine and does acupuncture. He discovered the tennis player suffers from gluten intolerance and cannot eat gluten, purging it from his diet. It appeared to have worked as Djokovic began feeling stronger, quicker, and much more fit. After Djokovic's Wimbledon win in July 2011, Četojević left the team.

After retiring from professional tennis in August 2011, Serbian player Dušan Vemić joined Djokovic's team as assistant coach and hitting partner for Novak. The collaboration ended before the 2013 US Open. 

Six-time Grand Slam champion and former world No. 1 Boris Becker, who mostly worked as television pundit for BBC Sport and Sky Sports since his 1999 retirement from playing, was announced as Djokovic's new head coach in December 2013. According to Djokovic, the Becker appointment was done with input from his existing head coach Marián Vajda who reportedly wanted to spend more time with his family and was looking to have his coaching workload somewhat reduced. For Becker, in addition to working alongside Vajda, the job entailed special emphasis on Grand Slams as Djokovic felt he missed out on winning a couple of Grand Slams over the previous two seasons due to a lack of mental edge in the final stages of those tournaments. Becker's first tournament coaching Djokovic was the 2014 Australian Open.

Sponsorships and business ventures 

Djokovic endorses Serbian telecommunications company Telekom Srbija and German nutritional supplement brand FitLine.

Since turning professional in 2003, Djokovic wore Adidas clothing and footwear. At the end of 2009, Djokovic signed a 10-year deal with the Italian clothing company Sergio Tacchini after Adidas refused to extend his clothing contract . Since Sergio Tacchini doesn't make shoes, he continued with Adidas as his choice of footwear. Djokovic's sponsorship contract with Tacchini was incentive heavy, and due to Djokovic's disproportionate success and dominance in 2011, the company fell behind on bonus payments, leading to the termination of the sponsorship contract. From 2011, Djokovic began to wear custom Red and Blue Adidas Barricade 6.0's shoes, referring to the colours of the Serbian national flag. By April 2012, the Tacchini deal had fallen first short and then apart. At that point, he was set to join forces with Nike, Inc., but instead, on 23 May 2012, Uniqlo appointed Djokovic as its global brand ambassador. The five-year sponsorship reportedly worth €8 million per year, began on 27 May 2012 in Paris' Roland-Garros French Open Tennis Tournament.

Djokovic did television commercial spots and print ads for supermarket chain Idea, the Serbian arm of Croatian supermarket retailer Konzum as well as for rival Serbian supermarket chain DIS Trgovina.

In August 2011, Djokovic became the brand ambassador of Swiss watch manufacturer Audemars Piguet. Less than a month later, Djokovic signed a sponsorship deal with German car company Mercedes-Benz. In March 2012, Djokovic was announced by Bombardier Aerospace as its latest Learjet brand ambassador, thus joining the likes of actor and pilot John Travolta, architect Frank Gehry, maestro Valery Gergiev, and classical pianist Lang Lang. From January 2014 Djokovic has been endorsing French car manufacturer Peugeot. At the same time he entered into an endorsement deal with Japanese watch manufacturer Seiko, having just ended his affiliation with their rivals Audemars Piguet. In early 2015, ahead of Australian Open, Djokovic teamed up with Australian banking corporation ANZ for a social media campaign to raise money for local communities across the Asia Pacific region.

According to Forbes, Djokovic earned US$31 million in endorsements during 2014, behind only to Roger Federer, Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, LeBron James, Kevin Durant, and Rory McIlroy .

Since 2004, the business end of Djokovic's career has been handled by Israeli managers Amit Naor  and Allon Khakshouri, the duo that also had Marat Safin and Dinara Safina as their clients. In June 2008, after the duo entered into partnership with CAA Sports, the sports division of Hollywood talent firm Creative Artists Agency, meaning that the famous company started representing tennis players for the first time, Djokovic formally signed with CAA Sports. After Djokovic's contract with CAA Sports expired during summer 2012, he decided to switch representation, announcing IMG Worldwide as his new representatives in December 2012.

Investments 

 

In 2005, as Djokovic moved up the tennis rankings, he ventured into the business world. His family founded a legal entity in Serbia named Family Sport. Registered as a limited liability company, its initial focus was the restaurant business. The company's day-to-day operations are mostly handled by Novak's father Srdjan and uncle Goran expanded its activities into real estate, sports/entertainment event organization, and sports apparel distribution.

The company opened theme cafés named Novak Café, as well as Novak Café & Restaurant in the Belgrade's municipality of Novi Beograd.

In February 2008, the company reached an agreement with local authorities in the city of Kragujevac about jointly entering into a real estate development deal that was to include 4 hectares of city-owned land at Veliki Park being developed into a tennis center with 14 courts. But by 2010 the company pulled out of these plans.

In March 2008, Family Sport won a municipal authority-organized tender in Novi Beograd by submitting an €11 million bid for the 3.8 hectares of land located in Ivan Ribar neighbourhood; with the ambitious plan to build a big tennis center there. As of spring 2013, construction is yet to commence.

In 2009, the company managed to buy an ATP tournament known as the Dutch Open and bring it to Serbia where it became – Serbia Open. With the help of Belgrade city authorities, the tournament's inaugural edition was held during May 2009 at the city-owned 'Milan Gale Muškatirović' courts, located at an attractive spot in Dorćol neighbourhood. In 2012, after four tournament editions, the company pulled out of the venture and Serbia Open ceased to exist.

On Monday, 4 July 2011, one day after Djokovic won Wimbledon, Family Sport organized the homecoming reception in front of the National Assembly building with more than 80,000 people gathering to greet him.

It was announced in late 2012 that Djokovic had purchased the entire existing 2013 production of donkey cheese, which is produced by a single farm in Serbia. It was believed that it was done to ensure a reliable supply for his chain of restaurants in Serbia. One week later, it was proven that the story was exaggerated. 

In popular culture 

Owing to his extroverted personality, fluency in several languages, and willingness to go along with comedic concepts, Djokovic became a fixture on entertainment-based TV talk shows around the globe immediately upon achieving a measure of prominence via results on the tennis court. After winning the Australian Open, his first major, in early 2008, Djokovic appeared on the American late-night programme The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. In May 2008, he was a special guest during the first semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest, held in Belgrade that year. He threw a big tennis ball into the crowd, announcing the start of the voting and together with one of the show's co-presenters, Željko Joksimović, Djokovic sang a song about Belgrade.

Throughout late April and early May 2009, during ATP Master Series tournaments in Rome and Madrid, respectively, the Serb was a guest on the Fiorello Show hosted by Italian comedian Rosario Fiorello followed by an appearance on Pablo Motos' show El Hormiguero. During the week off, in-between the two tournaments, Djokovic came home to Belgrade where he was interviewed by Nenad Lj. Stefanović on the RTS' hour-long, flagship one-on-one talk programme Svedok. In 2009, and 2010, Djokovic won an Oscar of Popularity for the most popular male athlete in Serbia.

Djokovic is also featured in the music video for the song "Hello" by Martin Solveig and Dragonette. The video, filmed at Stade Roland Garros, shows Solveig facing off against Bob Sinclar, another DJ, in a tennis match. When the referee calls a crucial ball "Out", Djokovic enters the arena and convinces the referee otherwise. In 2010, the Serbian blues-rock band Zona B recorded the song "The Joker", dedicating it to Djokovic.

Djokovic's international television appearances particularly intensified during his successful 2011 season. After winning Wimbledon and reaching the number one spot on the ATP list, he again appeared on Leno's Tonight Show as well as on Conan O'Brien's show on TBS. Djokovic's dramatic win at the US Open was followed by another television blitz including spots on Live with Regis and Kelly, CBS' The Early Show, NBC's Today as well as a walk-on appearance on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. On 25 June 2011, its seventieth Congress in Chicago, all the members unanimously awarded Djokovic the Order of Serbian National Defense in America I class, the highest decoration of the SND. The order was given to him because of his merits in the international sport scene and his contributions to the reputation of Serbs and Serbia around the world. In mid-November 2011, he made a triumphant return to Rai 1's Il più grande spettacolo dopo il weekend, hosted by Fiorello. In late November during the ATP World Tour Finals in London he was a guest on David Frost's interview programme Frost Over The World on Al Jazeera English.

He was voted the 19th most influential man on AskMen.com's Top 49 Most Influential Men of 2011. On invitation from film producer Avi Lerner, Djokovic became part of the high-budget Hollywood movie production The Expendables 2 in a cameo playing himself, which he shot on 29 November 2011 in a warehouse in the Bulgarian capital of Sofia. However, his bit part was cut out of the final version of the movie. He appeared on the cover of Italian GQ's March 2012 issue. Also, in March he was profiled on the CBS show 60 Minutes by their correspondent Bob Simon. He was named amongst the 100 most influential people of 2012 by TIME magazine. On 26 October 2012, he appeared on Canal+'s Le Grand Journal.

Before the 2014 US Open, top-ranked player in the world Djokovic went on the Late Show with David Letterman on 19 August 2014. 

In February 2015, following his 2015 Australian Open win, Djokovic made a return appearance on RTS' Svedok for another hour-long sitdown with Nenad Lj. Stefanović in prime time. His 2015 Wimbledon win got him a spot via a live linkup on CBS This Morning where he was interviewed by Charlie Rose and Gayle King. In late August 2015, ahead of the 2015 US Open, shortly after his appointment as the UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador was announced, Djokovic appeared on All In with Chris Hayes on MSNBC, also publicizing his foundation's partnership with the World Bank to promote early childhood development. Two weeks later, the day after his US Open win, Djokovic went on another blitz of the New York City-based media. Starting with the morning shows — with a return to NBC's Today for an in-studio interview with Matt Lauer, Savannah Guthrie, and Carson Daly followed by a return to CBS This Morning, this time in studio, with Charlie Rose, Gayle King, and Norah O'Donnell, and finally a guest spot on Live! with Kelly and Michael. Later in the day he went on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert late-night comedy programme for a walk-on appearance that included firing a serve at Stephen Colbert who hid behind Captain America's shield.

Djokovic is also very popular on video sharing sites due to his famous imitations of other tennis players such as Maria Sharapova, Rafael Nadal, Serena Williams and Ana Ivanovic.

Activism 

In 2007, Djokovic founded the Novak Djokovic Foundation. The organization's mission is to help children from disadvantaged communities to grow up and develop in stimulating and safe environments. In August 2015, Djokovic was appointed a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador. The foundation partnered with the World Bank in August 2015 to promote early childhood education in Serbia.

Tipster Street.