{"id":281476,"date":"2025-11-13T09:42:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-13T09:42:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/281476\/"},"modified":"2025-11-13T09:42:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-13T09:42:12","slug":"novak-djokovic-reveals-he-first-met-wife-jelena-while-she-was-dating-his-friend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/281476\/","title":{"rendered":"Novak Djokovic reveals he first met wife Jelena while she was dating his friend"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tennis<\/a> legend Novak Djokovic<\/a> has revealed the awkward story of how he and his wife Jelena first met.<\/p>\n

Djokovic, 38, and Jelena have been together for 20 years and share two children together.<\/p>\n

WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: Djokovic reveals how he met his wife Jelena.<\/p>\n

Know the news with the 7NEWS app: Download today \"Download<\/a><\/p>\n

The pair tied the knot in 2014 with son Stefan born the same year and daughter Tara arriving three years later.<\/p>\n

Jelena was also a tennis player in her youth, but never turned pro.<\/p>\n

Speaking to Piers Morgan Uncensored<\/a>, Djokovic said he first met Jelena when she was dating a friend of his.<\/p>\n

The friend, who was also a tennis player, celebrated winning a match by revealing a t-shirt that said \u201cJelena, I love you\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"JelenaJelena and Novak Djokovic have been together for over 20 years. Credit: Getty<\/p>\n

\u201cShe used to play tennis, but we never met through tennis while she was playing it, but she dated a tennis player that is a friend of mine from early days,\u201d Djokovic said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was funny because the first time I heard about her was when that friend, who was in the same tennis club as me, played a match and won an important match, and took out his jersey and underneath the jersey had the white shirt written, \u2018Jelena I love you, this is for you\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd we were like that is so lame, why would you do that and who is this Jelena, and it was her.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then and then she showed up afterwards and so forth and then we\u2019ve known each other through obviously common friends for about you know four or five years.<\/p>\n

\u201cActually one of my best friends has been her friend and they went to school together, so you know we were in a kind of similar same company.<\/p>\n

Djokovic went on to say they began dating when he moved to Monte Carlo \u2014 and stressed it was after she had split up with his friend.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s basically the only serious long serious relationship I ever had,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had some few months relationships here and there, but she\u2019s truly the love of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the potentially awkward situation, Djokovic is still friends with Jelena\u2019s ex-boyfriend and actually just spoke to him the day before the interview.<\/p>\n

However, the topic of Jelena remains off-limits between the two friends.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s good, he moved on and has a family,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe actually never spoke about it. I think we\u2019re both very uncomfortable speaking about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Djokovic last week became the third-oldest winner of an ATP title in the Open era after defeating Lorenzo Musetti in the final of the Athens Open.<\/p>\n

But he played with strapping on his shoulder and later announced he would have to pull out of this week\u2019s season-ending ATP Tour Finals in Turin.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was really looking forward to competing in Turin and giving my best but after today\u2019s final in Athens, I\u2019m sad to share that I need to withdraw due to an ongoing injury,\u201d he posted on Instagram.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m truly sorry to the fans who were hoping to see me play – your support means so much.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wish all the players an amazing tournament, and I can\u2019t wait to be back on the court with you all soon.\u201d<\/p>\n

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<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tennis legend Novak Djokovic has revealed the awkward story of how he and his wife Jelena first met.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":281477,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,1625,3592,3863,588,85,747],"class_list":["post-281476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-lifestyle","tag-novak-djokovic","tag-sponsored-content","tag-sport","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=281476"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281476\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/281477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=281476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=281476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=281476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}