Jokic, Djokovic place Serbia sports front and centre
DENVER: They use the court as their canvas, seeing passing lanes and paths to victory that others in their sports simply cannot.
For Novak Djokovic, it’s tennis. For Nikola Jokic, it’s basketball. For their home country of Serbia, June is shaping up as a month no sports fan there will ever forget.
Two once-in-a-generation athletes who grew up about 2 1/2 hours apart in a country not much more populous than Colorado are in the hunt to win titles that could stamp both their names in the history books.
A Serbian sweep at the French Open and in the NBA Finals would give Djokovic a record-setting 23rd grand slam; it would give Jokic his first NBA title and would finally bring a basketball championship to his new hometown of Denver.
They are not tight “I don’t have his number, to be honest,” Jokic says but they are following each other right now, each one duly impressed by what their fellow countryman is accomplishing.
“NBA league is the biggest and most important basketball league in the world,” Djokovic said during a recent interview at the French Open, where he is seeded third and set for his quarterfinal match on Tuesday. “To be able to be the best player in that league for three years in a row is just stunning.”
Jokic won the league’s MVP honor in 2021 and 2022 but was passed over this season by Joel Embiid of the 76ers a move that felt like a shun to Denver fans. Djokovic, too, knows what it’s like to not be everybody’s favorite. Even though no man surpasses his Grand Slam total, the tennis world has often found reasons to prefer the other greats of his era, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, over the player some call “Djoker.”
Though the two Jokers play diametrically different sports the best basketball teams thrive on teamwork, while the best tennis players master a oneon-one game where the fiercest opponent is often themselves they’re similar in more ways than you might expect.
Their professions require peak conditioning, something both men lacked in their early years as pros. Djokovic quit during his second-round match at the 2005 French Open, and stopped after losing the first two sets of his quarterfinal the next year at Roland Garros against Rafael Nadal, citing a bad back. Blisters, dizziness, sore throats and difficulty breathing also hampered him over his career.
But Djokovic says a renewed dedication to fitness and a decision to try a glutenfree diet -- he even wrote a book about that -- both helped. Now, one of Djokovic’s trademarks is his ability to outlast virtually anyone in the most grueling of matches. All but one of his Grand Slam titles have come since he reworked his fitness routine in 2009.
For Jokic, an epiphany came after the Nuggets squandered an 11-point lead in a Game 7 loss to the Trailblazers in the semifinals of the 2019 playoffs. The Nuggets trainer had long been telling Jokic that his ceiling was unlimited if he doubled down on his fitness. Jokic bought in. He lost 20-25 pounds, and though he will never be mistaken for Adonis, or even Djokovic, the difference has been clear.
“Early on, being the best player he could be was not necessarily about a skill set,” Nuggets coach Michael Malone said. “It was about maturing, growing up, handling adversity, dealing with the referees, getting into the best shape of his life, losing weight.”