Novak Đoković

 

Novak Đoković

Đoković at 2007 Australian Open
Nickname(s)	'Nole, the djoker'[1]
Country	Serbia
Residence	Monte Carlo, Monaco
Date of birth	May 22 1987 (1987--) (age 20)
Place of birth	Belgrade, Serbia, then SFR Yugoslavia
Height	ft  in ( m)
Weight	176 lb (80 kg)
Turned Pro	2003
Plays	Right; Two-handed backhand
Career Prize Money	US$ 4,104,550
Singles
Career record:	118-46
Career titles:	7
Highest ranking:	No. 3 (July 9, 2007)
Grand Slam results
Australian Open	4r (2007)
French Open	SF (2007)
Wimbledon	SF (2007)
U.S. Open	F (2007)
Doubles
Career record:	12-23
Career titles:	0
Highest ranking:	No. 134 (August 20, 2007)
Infobox last updated on: October 14, 2007.

The title of this article contains the following characters: Đ and Ć. Where they are unavailable or not desired, the name may be represented as Novak Djokovic.

Novak Đoković (commonly spelled Djokovic in English-language sources,^[1],[2],[3] Serbian Cyrillic: Новак Ђоковић^[4], pronounced [ˈnɔvaːk 'ʥɔːkɔviʨ],  listen?) is a Serbian tennis player who turned professional in 2003. An up-and-coming player at 20 years of age, Đoković has already proven himself to be an all-court player with an abundance of talent. His major achievements have come in 2007, where he was the runner-up at the U.S. Open and reached three Masters Series finals, winning in Miami and Montréal. Also, he reached the semifinals at French Open and Wimbledon. His highest ranking on the ATP Tour is World No. 3, which he reached on July 9, 2007.

Personal

Novak Đoković was born May 22, 1987 in Belgrade, then-Yugoslavia. He is the oldest child of father Srđan and mother Dijana.^[1] In addition to Novak, there are two younger sons, Đorđe and Marko. Đoković started playing tennis at age 4, and when 12 he attended the Nikola Pilić Academy (for tennis) in Munich.^[1] Đoković speaks Serbian, German and English.^[1]

He resides in Monte Carlo, Monaco and is coached by a former Slovak tennis player, Marián Vajda.^[5]

He often does humorous off-court impersonations of his fellow players, many of whom he is friends with.^[6] This became evident to the tennis world after his 2007 US Open quarterfinal win over Carlos Moyà, where he entertained the audience with impersonations of Rafael Nadal and Maria Sharapova.^[3]

Tennis career

2003-2005

In the beginning of this professional career, Ðoković mainly played in Futures and Challenger tournaments, winning three of each type of tournament.

2006

He participated in the 2006 Hopman Cup with fellow Serbian player Ana Ivanović where the pairing narrowly missed the final.

He continued his great run in 2006 by shooting up the rankings. In May 2006, various reports appeared in the British media about Novak's mother Dijana reportedly approaching Britain's Lawn Tennis Association about her son joining British tennis ranks and the possibility of their entire 5-person family moving from Serbia to live in Britain.^[7] All the rumours didn't affect Đoković's play, however. He started 2006 ranked 78th, but with an excellent run to the quarter-finals in Roland Garros and a 4th round at Wimbledon, he found himself in the top 40. Just three weeks after Wimbledon he won his maiden title in Amersfoort without losing a set defeating Nicolás Massú in the final. Đoković won his second career title in Metz and with this victory moved into the top 20 for the first time in his career.

2007

Đoković began a successful year by winning in Adelaide, defeating Australian Chris Guccione in the final. At the 2007 Australian Open, he reached the fourth round, where he lost to eventual champion Roger Federer in straight sets.

In 2007, his performances in the Masters Series events at Indian Wells and Miami, where he was runner-up and champion respectively, pushed him well into the world's top ten. In those tournaments, which were his first and second Masters finals, he defeated fellow rising star Andy Murray in the semi finals without dropping a set in either match. He lost the Indian Wells final to Rafael Nadal, but avenged this defeat by beating Nadal in the Miami event, before defeating the resurgent Guillermo Cañas in the final (6-3, 6-2, 6-4). He later played in the prestigious Monte Carlo Open, only to be defeated by David Ferrer in his third round match in straight sets. He reached the quarterfinals of both Rome and Hamburg Masters, but lost to Carlos Moyà and Nadal, respectively. At the tournament in Estoril, Đoković defeated frenchman Richard Gasquet 7-6, 0-6, 6-1, in the final.

At the French Open he reached his first Grand Slam semifinal ever, where he lost to eventual champion Rafael Nadal.

During the 2007 Wimbledon Championships, he won an epic match against Marcos Baghdatis in the quarter finals. The match ended 7-6(4), 7-6(9), 6-7(3), 4-6, 7-5 and lasted 5 hours, just 5 minutes shy of the longest singles match in a single day in Wimbledon history. In his semi-final match, he was forced to retire against Rafael Nadal due to a back injury and foot problem.

He garnered further success in the Masters Series, winning the Canada Masters. In the final he defeated top seeded Roger Federer 7-6(2), 2-6, 7-6(2). In reaching the championship, he achieved the remarkable feat of defeating the World Nos. 1, 2 and 3 (Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Andy Roddick, respectively) on three consecutive days. This is the first time a player has accomplished this since Boris Becker in 1994. Moreover, Đoković became only the 2nd person, after Tomáš Berdych, to have defeated both Federer and Nadal since they became the dominant #1 and #2 players in the world. His successful performance made Björn Borg state that Đoković "is definitely a contender to win a Grand Slam."^[8] However, Đoković's appearance the following week at the Cincinnati Masters, resulted disappointingly with a straight-set loss to Carlos Moyà in the 2nd round.

He nevertheless came to the 2007 US Open with a lot of confidence and expectation and reached the final where he lost to World no. 1 Roger Federer 7-6(4), 7-6(2), 6-4. On his way to the final, Đoković won an epic 5-set (6-7(4) 7-6(5) 5-7 7-5 7-6(2)) 2nd round match against Radek Štěpánek after nearly 5 hours of play.

Đoković returned after a minor injury to Vienna, to beat Stanislas Wawrinka in the final 6-4, 6-0 and take his 5th title of the year. The win enables Đoković to gain closer on Rafael Nadal in the ATP Tour Rankings. Đoković's next tournament was the prestigous Madrid Masters, where he lost to David Nalbandian 6-4, 7-6(4) in the semi-finals, an improvement on the previous years finish.

Davis Cup

He is good friends with fellow junior graduate (and sometimes doubles partner) Andy Murray, who was part of the Great Britain team that Serbia and Montenegro defeated in the Davis Cup in Glasgow in April 2006. Đoković got the decisive win on 9th April, by defeating Greg Rusedski in four sets in the fourth match, giving his team a 3-1 lead in their best of 5 series. He now represents Serbia, as the country gained independence in June 2006. By winning all of his three matches, Đoković played a key role in the 2007 play-off win over Australia, promoting Serbia to World Group in 2008.

Equipment

Đoković is sponsored by Wilson and Adidas. He uses a heavily customised Wilson n-Blade equipped with a hybrid of Technifibre and Wilson strings. Đoković also wears the Adidas Barricade IV shoe.

Career statistics

Grand Slam finals (1)

Singles (1)

Runner-up (1)

Year	Championship	Opponent in Final	Score in Final
2007	U.S. Open	Roger Federer	7-6(4), 7-6(2), 6-4

ATP Masters Series finals (3)

Singles (3)

Wins (2)

Year	Championship	Opponent in Final	Score in Final
2007	Miami	Guillermo Cañas	6-3, 6-2, 6-4
2007	Montréal	Roger Federer	7-6(2), 2-6, 7-6(2)

Runner-up (1)

Year	Championship	Opponent in Final	Score in Final
2007	Indian Wells	Rafael Nadal	6-2, 7-5

Career finals (11)

Singles (10)

Wins (7)

Legend Grand Slam (0) Tennis Masters Cup (0) ATP Masters Series (2) ATP Tour (5)

Titles by Surface Hard (5) Clay (2) Grass (0) Carpet (0)

No.	Date	Tournament	Surface	Opponent in the final	Score
1.	July 17, 2006	Amersfoort, Netherlands	Clay	Nicolás Massú	7-6(5), 6-4
2.	October 2, 2006	Metz, France	Hard (I)	Jürgen Melzer	4-6, 6-3, 6-2
3.	January 1, 2007	Adelaide, Australia	Hard	Chris Guccione	6-3, 6-7(6), 6-4
4.	April 1, 2007	Miami, U.S.	Hard	Guillermo Cañas	6-3, 6-2, 6-4
5.	April 29, 2007	Estoril, Portugal	Clay	Richard Gasquet	7-6(7), 0-6, 6-1
6.	August 12, 2007	Montréal, Canada	Hard	Roger Federer	7-6(2), 2-6, 7-6(2)
7.	October 14, 2007	Vienna, Austria	Hard (I)	Stanislas Wawrinka	6-4, 6-0

Runner-ups (3)

No.	Date	Tournament	Surface	Opponent in the final	Score
1.	30 July, 2006	Umag, Croatia	Clay	Stanislas Wawrinka	6-6(1) ret.
2.	18 March, 2007	Indian Wells, U.S.	Hard	Rafael Nadal	6-2, 7-5
3.	9 September, 2007	U.S. Open, New York, USA	Hard	Roger Federer	7-6(4), 7-6(2), 6-4

Doubles (1)

Runner-up (1)

No.	Date	Tournament	Surface	Partner	Opponents in the final	Score
1.	January 7, 2007	Adelaide, Australia	Hard	Radek Štěpánek	Wesley Moodie & Todd Perry	6-4, 3-6, 15-13

Performance timeline

Singles

To prevent confusion and double counting, information in this table is updated only once a tournament or the player's participation in the tournament has concluded. This table is current through the Madrid Masters tournament, which ended on October 21, 2007.

Tournament	2004	2005	2006	2007	Career SR	Career win-loss
Australian Open	A	1R	1R	4R	0 / 3	3-3
French Open	A	2R	QF	SF	0 / 3	10-3
Wimbledon	A	3R	4R	SF	0 / 3	10-3
U.S. Open	A	3R	3R	F	0 / 3	10-3
Grand Slam SR	0 / 0	0 / 4	0 / 4	0 / 4	0 / 12	N/A
Grand Slam Win-Loss	0-0	5-4	9-4	19-4	N/A	33-12
Tennis Masters Cup	A	A	A		0 / 0	0-0
Indian Wells Masters	A	A	1R	F	0 / 2	5-2
Miami Masters	A	A	2R	W	1 / 2	7-1
Monte Carlo Masters	A	A	1R	3R	0 / 2	1-2
Rome Masters	A	A	A	QF	0 / 1	2-1
Hamburg Masters	A	A	2R	QF	0 / 2	3-2
Canada Masters	A	A	A	W	1 / 1	5-0
Cincinnati Masters	A	1R	2R	2R	0 / 3	1-3
Madrid Masters	A	A	QF	SF	0 / 2	5-2
Paris Masters	A	3R	2R		0 / 2	2-2
Runner-ups	0	0	1	2	N/A	3
Tournament Titles	0	0	2	5	N/A	7
Hardcourt Win-Loss	0-1	2-3	17-9	43-8	N/A	62-21
Grass Win-Loss	0-0	2-1	4-2	6-2	N/A	12-5
Carpet Win-Loss	1-0	3-2	5-2	1-0	N/A	10-4
Clay Win-Loss	1-2	4-5	14-5	18-5	N/A	37-17
Overall Win-Loss	2-3	11-11	40-18	68-15	N/A	121-47
Year End Ranking	186	78	16		N/A	N/A

• A = did not participate in the tournament.
• SR = the ratio of the number of singles tournaments won to the number of those tournaments played.

Challengers and futures titles (6)

Legend

Challengers (3)

Futures (3)

No.	Date	Tournament	Surface	Opponent in the final	Score
1.	June 23, 2003	Belgrade, Serbia and Montenegro	Clay	Cesar Ferrer-Victoria	6-4, 7-5
2.	May 3, 2004	Szolnok, Hungary	Clay	Marko Tkalec	6-4, 6-2
3.	May 17, 2004	Budapest, Hungary	Clay	Daniele Bracciali	6-1, 6-2
4.	August 9, 2004	Belgrade, Serbia and Montenegro	Clay	Flavio Cipolla	6-4, 6-3
5.	November 1, 2004	Aachen, Germany	Carpet	Lars Burgsmüller	6-4, 3-6, 6-4
6.	May 9, 2005	San Remo, Italy	Clay	Francesco Aldi	6-3, 7-6(4)

ATP Tour career earnings

Year	Majors	ATP wins	Total wins	Earnings ($)	Money list rank
2003	0	0	0	2,704	937
2004	0	0	0	40,790	292
2005	0	0	0	202,416	114
2006	0	2	2	644,940	28
2007*	0	5	5	$3,213,700	3
Career*	0	7	7	$4,104,550	97

* As of October 14, 2007.

References

See also

• Tennis performance timeline comparison (men)
• Serbia Davis Cup team

External links

• Official site (English) (Serbian)
• ATP Tour profile for Novak Đoković
• Đoković Recent Match Results
• Đoković World Ranking History

Awards
Preceded by Rafael Nadal	ATP Most Improved Player 2006	Succeeded by –

Association of Tennis Professionals | Top ten male tennis players as of October 15 2007
1. Roger Federer 6. Fernando González 2. Rafael Nadal 7. 1 David Ferrer 3. Novak Đoković 8. 1 James Blake 4. Nikolay Davydenko 9. Tommy Robredo 5. Andy Roddick 10. 2 Tommy Haas

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