Goran Ivanisevic - Novak Djokovic has to be killed 27 times
Coach Goran Ivanisevic was very impressed after the sixth Wimbledon title of his protégé Novak Djokovic.
by Jens Huiber
last edit: Jul 14, 2021, 07:59 am
It has now been exactly 20 years since Goran Ivanisevic celebrated his greatest triumph on the tennis stage. The Croatian dueled Patrick Rafter for five sentences in the first and only Monday final in Wimbledon history, was completely nervous in the very last service game - and was finally able to hug his father and coach Niki Pilic with tears of joy. Two decades later, Ivanisevic had another reason to celebrate, this time as Novak Djokovic's supervisor.
Now it is said of cats that they possibly have nine lives. In the case of Djokovic, Ivanisevic falls short of this figure. "It's like from one of those films: you have to kill the guy 27 times and he still gets up again, and you kill him again, and he gets up again and again," enthused Ivanisevic on Sunday at Wimbledon. “It's just great. I am proud to be here and to testify that I am part of this story. Novak will make history, I firmly believe in it. "
The final is not good enough for Djokovic
Goran Ivanisevic does not dare to assess what exactly this means. "Everything is possible. I don't dare to say yet that he will reach 30 because there is still a long way to go. But five, six, seven years ago we talked about Federer , only about Federer. Now we have him and Nadal fighting over who is the best of all time. For me this is Novak. He makes history. He'll make it to the US Open. I am firmly convinced that he will win all four majors this year. "
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Djokovic doesn't always make things easy for his supervisors Ivanisevic and Marian Vajda. “Working with him is a privilege, it's an honor, but it's not easy. There's a lot of pressure. The final is not good enough. We only count the victories. There is a lot of pressure. But it's fun, it's a challenge. After winning Paris, he came here very confidently, played with confidence. In a couple of matches he didn't play that well, but he still won. That's why he's such a champion. "
Goran Ivanisevic also has an explanation for why this is so. “We both come from the Balkans. Anything is possible for people from the Balkans. When nobody expects anything, we create everything. We are very, very special people. "