Novak Djokovic

He dated Jelena Ristić since 2005, and got engaged with her in September 2013.

On July 10, 2014, they got married on Sveti Stefan, a small island and hotel resort in Montenegro and on July 12 the church wedding took place in the ‘Church of Saint Stephen’ there. Their son Stefan was born on October 21 that year.

Apart from Serbian he can speak English, Italian and German languages.

He was born on May 22, 1987, in Belgrade, Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to Srđan Djokovic and his wife Dijana. His father was a professional flier and also excelled in soccer.

His brothers Djordje and Marko, both younger to him, play tennis and aspire to become professional players.

When he was four years old he got introduced to the game and by the time he was six, during the summer of 1993, he was spotted by Serbian tennis player and coach Jelena Genčić, in his parent’s fast-food joint at Mount Kopaonik. She was amazed by his excellent performance at such young age and since then till 1999 she coached the budding star.

For his further development Genčić made arrangement for him to train under former Croatian tennis player Nikola Pilić and the 12 year old boy was shifted to Pilić tennis academy in Oberschleißheim, Germany in September 1999 where he spent four years.

He made his international debut in 2001 at 14 and won the European championship’s singles and doubles titles and was also a player of the winning team. He was part of ‘Junior Davis Cup’ team from ‘Federal Republic of Yugoslavia’ in 2001 that reached the final. However Djokovic was defeated in his singles match.

In 2003 he turned pro and initially played in ‘ATP Challenger Series’ and ‘Futures’ tournaments and during 2003 to 2005 he bagged three wins in each.

In 2005 he qualified for ‘Australian Open’ marking his first ‘Grand Slam’ tournament but was eliminated in the first round by Marat Safin, the eventual winner of the title.

He endeavoured into the world of business in 2005 when his family founded the ‘Family Sport’, daily operations of which are primarily handled by his father and uncle. In 2009 the company bought one of ‘ATP’ tournaments, the ‘Dutch Open’ and brought it to Serbia, which is presently called ‘Serbia Open’.

From 2006 he was coached by former Slovak tennis player Marián Vajda and from December 2013 former world No. 1 German tennis player Boris Becker became his Head Coach.

In 2006 he achieved his first two ‘ATP’ titles by winning ‘Dutch Open’ on outdoor clay court and ‘Moselle Open’ on indoor hard courts. That year for the first time he reached the top 20 list in rankings.

In November 2007, he founded the ‘Novak Djokovic Foundation’ to aid underprivileged children of Serbia in getting proper education and other essential resources so as to lead a healthy and productive life.

In 2016 he donated $20,000 for the early childhood education program undertaken by ‘Melbourne City Mission’ to aid underprivileged children.