{"id":262791,"date":"2025-11-05T06:57:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-05T06:57:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/262791\/"},"modified":"2025-11-05T06:57:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-05T06:57:08","slug":"novak-djokovic-honours-nikola-pilics-memory-as-long-as-i-live-i-will-celebrate-his-name-atp-tour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/262791\/","title":{"rendered":"Novak Djokovic honours Nikola Pilic&#8217;s memory: &#8216;As long as I live, I will celebrate his name&#8217; | ATP Tour"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>        Athens<br \/>\n    Djokovic honours Nikola Pilic&#8217;s memory: &#8216;As long as I live, I will celebrate his name&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>Serbian reflects on memorable ceremony in Athens<\/p>\n<p>November 04, 2025<\/p>\n<p>            <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/djokovic-athens-2025-pilic-ceremony.jpg\" alt=\"Novak Djokovic and friends who also attended Nikola Pilic's academy.\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Andrew Eichenholz\/atp toUR<\/p>\n<p>        Novak Djokovic and friends who also attended Nikola Pilic&#8217;s academy.<br \/>\n        By Andrew Eichenholz<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.atptour.com\/en\/players\/novak-djokovic\/d643\/overview\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Novak Djokovic<\/a> celebrated more than a victory Tuesday evening at the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.atptour.com\/en\/tournaments\/athens\/5100\/overview\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Vanda Pharmaceuticals Hellenic Championship<\/a>. The 100-time tour-level titlist also honoured the life of influential coach <a href=\"https:\/\/www.atptour.com\/en\/players\/nikola-pilic\/p080\/overview\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Nikola Pilic<\/a>, who passed away in September. <\/p>\n<p>Djokovic welcomed friends and coaches from Pilic&#8217;s academy \u2014 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.atptour.com\/en\/players\/petar-basic\/b943\/overview\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Petar Basic<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.atptour.com\/en\/players\/lado-chikhladze\/c879\/overview\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Lado Chikhladze<\/a>, Ana Jovanovic, Oliver Poturicek, Peter Shuster and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.atptour.com\/en\/players\/kostas-zaraklanis\/z244\/overview\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Kostas Zaraklanis<\/a> \u2014 \u00a0to the court in Athens to remember his life in front of a packed crowd. Djokovic and his brother, tournament director <a href=\"https:\/\/www.atptour.com\/en\/players\/djordje-djokovic\/db44\/overview\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Djordje Djokovic<\/a>, were moved as a video tribute played on the big screen.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was an emotional moment,\u201d Djokovic told ATPTour.com. \u201cConsidering what he meant to me and my family \u2014 privately, also professionally \u2014 he was my tennis father as I like to call him, someone that has played a fundamental, integral role in my development as a tennis player and as a human being.  It was really sad news when I heard that he passed away a few months ago.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>You May Also Like: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.atptour.com\/en\/news\/nikola-pilic-obituary\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Tennis world farewells Niki Pilic<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Pilic\u2019s funeral was the first Djokovic had attended. The emotions of that moment remain with him and is a powerful reminder of the impact Pilic had on the Serbian and many others.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was a very, very difficult moment,\u201d Djokovic said. \u201cBut on a brighter side, the legacy that he left behind on me, but also for this sport, is never going to fade away, never going to die. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs long as I play tennis and as long as I live, I will celebrate his name. And tonight this was one of the moments of how to pay tribute and I\u2019m sure in the near future \u2014 in the far future as well \u2014 people will learn about how Niki has impacted the world of tennis and the world of sport. He deserves it. He was a very special man.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Athens Djokovic honours Nikola Pilic&#8217;s memory: &#8216;As long as I live, I will celebrate his name&#8217; Serbian reflects&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":262792,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":{"0":"post-262791","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=262791"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262791\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/262792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=262791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=262791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=262791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}