Friday, January 07, 2022
Always anger about Novak Djokovic
About war criminals, oaths – and love
Needed by David
One of the greatest tennis players of all time creates an Australian fiasco. Why? Having grown up in a war zone, Novak Djokovic today gets lost in the influence of Serbian nationalists and quasi-scientific oaths. All he wants is affection and love.
When Roger Federer enters the square, cheers break out in the audience. Almost every touch of the ball by the old master causes admiration. His points are applauded frenetically, Aaahs and Ooohs fly through the wide circle. With the opponent it works the other way round. There is applause for his mistakes and insults repeatedly find their way onto the Center Court.
Wimbledon 2019. Federer’s opposite is called Novak Djokovic. He defeated the Swiss on that day in a monumental final, in which he even fended off match points. And yet, the 2019 final is symbolic of that, it is the old master who always attracts the greatest sympathy. Love and affection that Djokovic never receives from fans in this way and for which he often looks a little jealous of Federer and Rafael Nadal.
Throughout his career, Djokovic has repeatedly shown himself to be visibly hurt by the audience’s deprivation of love. If the Swiss and the Spaniard are simply cheered for their presence, the Serb has to move the audience to cheer even after breathtaking rallies with gestures. So he decides to be the best. The 34-year-old is the number one in the tennis world, and he finished seven seasons on the court in the sun. More than anyone before him. He’s without question the best player in recent years. One of the greatest of all time. Probably the best return player ever.
“He’s not for everyone”
In search of recognition and love, Djokovic does everything to win his 21st Grand Slam title. With this record victory, he would have been immortalized in the history books alone and would have trumped Federer. That would give satisfaction to the passionate and sensitive Serb, especially after he narrowly missed the Golden Slam and Olympic gold medal last year. And that is also one of the reasons why he absolutely wants to take part in the Australian Open and is now sitting in an immigration hotel near Melbourne Airport with his visa revoked.
Getting vaccinated against Corona would of course have been easier. But Novak Djokovic has always been a good and incredibly polarizing tennis player throughout his career. Long before he spoke out against the Covid vaccination, he was almost not popular with his colleagues as a newcomer to the tour because he aped them and their gestures, facial expressions and ticks on the pitch. This earned him the nickname “Joker” (“joke” means joke in English). “He’s not for everyone,” his former coach Boris Becker once said of him.
But Djokovic, who pays attention to his diet, regeneration and fitness like no other tennis professional, polarizes not only because he messes with the referees or ball boys and girls on the court (Federer and Nadal are also loved because of their prudence). Because his anger sometimes makes him lose control of himself, like when he was frustrated and exasperated when he thrashed a ball away with full force at the US Open in 2020 and injured a line judge in the head. Or because, in the eyes of his opponents, he likes to exaggerate with the display of injuries.
Djokovic and quasi-science
No, Djokovic offends. With topics that are more important than the yellow felt ball. This is another reason why some tennis fans do not love him unconditionally, despite his success and his brilliance on the court. In April 2020, the Serb speaks out publicly against a corona vaccination for the first time. He later added that he was not against all vaccinations, but the role model does not want to provide any information about one’s own vaccination status for millions of adults, children and young people around the world to this day.
That he is hardly aware of the dangers of the corona pandemic – or that he does not care about them – he shows in summer 2020 when he organizes an Adria tennis tour with thousands of fans while the entire tennis circuit is in lockdown. The tennis stars hang around in nightclubs with Alexander Zverev, among others, until the Bulgarian player Gregor Dimitrov tests positive and the tour is canceled. Djokovic and his wife Jelena are also infected shortly afterwards.
In any case, the world number one turns out to be more and more a science skeptic and oath over the years. The avowed vegan tries to live as naturally as possible. He once stated that he was convinced that the human “body is a self-healing mechanism”. He also believes that “some people” could use “prayer” and “gratitude” to “make the most poisonous foods or perhaps the most polluted water.” transform into healing water“and molecules in water would respond to human emotions.
Ultimately, as a result of the vaccination and visa fiasco, he becomes – intentionally or unintentionally – the poster boy for anti-vaccination campaigners around the world. At least he willingly accepts the development. Although Djokovic of course has many sides, including a very compassionate one. After Corona spreads in Serbia in March 2020, he buys ventilators and medical equipment for one million euros. He also donated for Bergamo, the worst affected Italian region at the time. Anyway, the Serb is involved, who participated in the eleven week long in 1999 Had to hide the bombing of his country by NATO, with its foundation that was launched in 2007, supports children worldwide and builds schools. Especially in his war-torn homeland.
Nationalist cronies
However, his handling shows that money is not everything and is good for you. In September, photos of Djokovic at the coffee table by the side of the Serbian nationalist Milan Jolovic became public. A former commander of the infamous Drina Wolves paramilitary unit that was involved in the genocide of the Bosniaks in Srebrenica. Many Serbs still give Jolovic great credit for saving the life of the convicted war criminal Ratko Mladic during the war in Bosnia in the early 1990s.
Shortly before, at a wedding in Bosnia, Djokovic was singing a few songs on the microphone together with the Serbian member of the Bosnian-Herzegovinian state presidency, Milorad Dodik. Dodik is a well-known genocide denier who regularly advocates the separation of the Serb-led entity Republika Srpska from Bosnia. From Dodik and Srpska, Djokovic will also accept an award in 2020 that the war criminals Mladic and Radovan Karadzic or the nationalist president Slobodan Milosevic had already received.
In December 2020, the tennis star will pose with a schnapps that bears the name and likeness of the former Serbian nationalist leader Dragoljub Mihailovic. He fought for an “ethnically pure” Serbia in World War II and is now considered a hero by Serbian right-wing extremists and a war criminal in Croatia, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Djokovic has repeatedly spoken out in favor of reconciliation between Serbs and Croats, but he and his father also support Serbian hard-line positions against the independence of Kosovo. The tennis star said after his triumph at the Australian Open in 2008: “We are ready to defend what is rightfully ours. Kosovo is Serbia.”
It is possible that the war in his homeland and the resulting inadequate historical and scientific training – from his youth onwards he spends more time on the tennis court than on the school desk – have made Djokovic vulnerable. For crude swagger, quasi-science and emotional, nationalist views. War history will also play a part in his constant search for affection and love.
Doubtful influences and views pave the way of the tennis icon, who is now stuck in Australia and experiencing a fiasco that could certainly damage her in the long term. Novak Djokovic would have flown enough love just because of his incredible handling of the yellow felt ball. Roger Federer or not.