The world No 1 talks to Russell Jackson before his Australian Open title defence approximately the women who have most influenced him in his hugely successful career,and his holistic approach to lifeParis, June 2013. Novak Djokovic has just beaten Grigor Dimitrov in straight sets to advance to the fourth round of the French Open. Nothing strange there, and nor in the immediate aftermath when he does something quintessentially Djokovician,wooing the crowd by conducting his post-match interview in the local tongue and claiming that one day he’ll open up a Serbian restaurant in their nation’s capital. The Parisians roar with delight.
Then Djokovic steps absent from the cameras, heads to the locker room and immediately hears the news that had been kept from him before the match, and that Jelena Gencic has died. Gencic is the matriarch of Serbian tennis and in Djokovic’s eyes its best ever coach. She’s the woman who first saw Djokovic at the age of five and decided that the fastidiously packed tennis bag this young boy had brought along with him to the local courts pointed to unteachable qualities,some innate ((adj.) natural, inborn, inherent; built-in) capacity and depth of character. Here was a champion in waiting.
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Source: theguardian.com