All relationships are complex on one level or another. Whether it’s two – person relationships, or a person’s relationships with a public, an audience. Huge athletes have always faced ups and downs in the attitude of the crowd towards them: shouts of contempt alongside stormy applause, sculptures built in their image alongside throwing objects from the stands. Despite everything, there seems to be no giant athlete who has experienced crowd hatred like Novak Djokovic.
Quite a few great athletes have received a lot of criticism throughout their careers, but it is hard to think of such a great athlete, one of the three greatest of all time in his industry (if not the greatest), who receives contempt in every field he comes to. Djokovic is like that. In the past we have seen him get excited about the contempt and say it serves as his motivation, but in the final of the US Open five months ago it felt like something had changed in the unbreakable Serb.
Djokovic could have won the 21st Grand Slam of his career, thus overtaking Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, but played bad tennis and lost 6-4, 6-4, 6-4. Towards the end of the game he began to receive, for the first time in a long time, applause from the crowd. Seeing that it affected him, he also said it himself: “You touched my soul. I have never felt this way in New York or anywhere else. I love you, meet you soon. I have not won, but I am the happiest man who has ever lived.”
Five months later, Djokovic found himself in a detention facility in Australia, after apparently presenting a false vaccination certificate to Corona. The state of Victoria, where the Australian Open is being played, prohibits unvaccinated people from entering its territory and the Serb may find himself deported back to Serbia.
The 2022 Australian Open was supposed to be his coronation moment. As a favorite to win the Grand Slam, which he has won nine times in the past, he was expected to break the record on his favorite court. Despite this, he currently finds himself imprisoned in Australia, on the verge of deportation, and with zero amount of public support or backing. So why, in fact, do people not like Novak Djokovic?
It used to be different. When Novak Djokovic just joined the tennis round, he was considered a new spirit in a round filled with people who had never excelled in public relations like Roger Federer. Djokovic’s refreshing attitude was something else – the imitations on the court of Federer or Maria Sharapova, the light answers in interviews after games and the general attitude showed that he wants to take tennis easily, while at the same time being very successful on the court.
it worked. Djokovic once came into the game with a lawn mower, another time he played with a wig and made small passages that drew people to the games. A modest and close-knit approach to fans, along with a good family life and pets that went viral, made him a favorite of the round when he broke out in 2007-2008. For years he was one of the best players in the world, but only won one Grand Slam, the 2008 Australian Championship, until the incredible year of 2011 in which he won three majors and stopped only in the Roland Garros semi-final against Roger Federer at his peak.
The connection of the fans to Djokovic stemmed not only from the gimmicks on the court, from the guest appearance in “Unforgettable 2” or from the fact that he is a very good tennis player, but also from his life story. Djokovic, a 34-year-old Serb, started playing tennis at the age of 4. In the same year, a civil war broke out in Yugoslavia, which fatally affected him and his family. Growing up in a civil war situation can affect anyone, and a bit like Zlatan Ibrahimovic (who grew up with a Serbian father and was also influenced by the civil war in Yugoslavia), Djokovic became an almost unbreakable athlete under the influence of that war.
It can not be broken. He came back from a 2-0 deficit in sets against Stefanos Tsitsipas in the semi-finals of the Roland Garros, defeated 12:13 Roger Federer in the legendary Wimbledon 2019 final and managed to break Rafael Nadal as well. The list goes on. If Djokovic wants a win, he will do anything to get it. This is exactly what we expect from our athletes, and was supposed to make the “Joker” one of the most beloved athletes in the world, or at least one that wins a loyal fan base like Federer or Nadal.
One of the moments where we saw this hatred most prominently was the 2019 Wimbledon final, when he defeated Roger Federer. At the moment of winning Djokovic received unprecedented shouts of contempt, not obvious given the long tradition and restraint practiced at Wimbledon, but it was only a moment that blew up years of tension around Djokovic.
Long service breaks between games or systems, a call for medical treatment for puzzling injuries after which he returns to peak fitness and wins consecutive systems, celebrations that are perceived as defiant towards the opposing tennis player and the abnormal dominance made him hate the crowd. If all that wasn’t enough, there are also the venomous reactions towards Simon Bales and the mental crisis during the Olympics.
It is important to talk about the last part. Between 2011 and 2016 he won 11 of 24 major tournaments (Australian Championship, Roland Garros, Wimbledon and United States Championship) and reached seven more finals. Djokovic was the best player in the world by a huge margin, given the decline of Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal that began at that time until the comeback of the two.
This dominance, and those dubious tricks designed to help him maintain the advantage, were not particularly popular. On top of that, he entered a world that was split between Federer and Vandal fans and made it his own. Novak is not as elegant and portable as Federer at his peak, nor a superior physical force like Nadal. Each of them attracted millions of fans thanks to these abilities, and did not quite know how to eat Djokovic. Suddenly someone new comes along, stops games and continues them when it suits him, and wins all the titles. Would you like it?
Like too many things in our lives, the corona only intensified the problems. Djokovic has garnered a lot of public, justified criticism, after organizing a tournament in the middle of the first wave and leading to the contagion of many, including himself. Criticism of the irresponsibility continued with his refusal to be vaccinated, but in the 2021 United States final it really felt like something was changing.
In practice, this did not happen. Djokovic is not yet vaccinated, but arrived in Australia after receiving approval from the competition management. The Australian government has not allowed him to enter the country and he is currently stuck in the middle, in a detention facility near the airport, in what has become a diplomatic incident between Serbia and Australia.
Bessarabia, Djokovic’s country of origin, is a national hero. The sympathy for him he wins at games in Belgrade or as part of the Davis team is immense, and the failure in Tokyo (where he won only the bronze medal and not the gold as expected), where he gets complete backing. One can understand why: it represents important values for the Serbian people and the most successful athlete who has ever left the country.
The current criticism is justified. Without getting into the exhausting corona debates, Djokovic violated the law of the Australian government as an unvaccinated person entering a country that bans their entry. According to the Australian Prime Minister, Djokovic is staying illegally.
This affair is another stain on Djokovic’s legacy, which will remain controversial. There is no question that he is one of the greatest tennis players in history, there is no doubt that he is not liked and it is going to affect all the legacy discussions, even if he achieves greater objective achievements than Federer or Nadal.
Sports, in the end, exist for the audience. Both in terms of the money that drives the industry, also in terms of its significance (without it Djokovic could have played at Sportek near his place of residence). If the audience does not like you, are you really such a great athlete? As someone who entered the middle of Federer Vandal’s era, did Djokovic have a chance to win sympathy at the expense of the two who became synonymous with tennis? There is no unequivocal answer.
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