The documentary shows footage of a young Djokovic being interviewed on television. Asked how he feels about tennis, he calls it a “responsibility”.<\/p>\n
“My goal in tennis is to become a champion,” he says.<\/p>\n
Djokovic’s career, from his style of play to his attitude on court, has been shaped by his childhood experiences in a way that few other players can possibly relate.<\/p>\n
Born in Belgrade, Djokovic was a young child during the Nato bombings of the Serbian capital between March and June 1999.<\/p>\n
He recalls running from his building – which did not have a bomb shelter – to another for safety. On the way, he tripped, and his unaware family continued running. Djokovic turned to look at his building and watched a plane drop two bombs on a nearby hospital.<\/p>\n
“Pretty much every day, for years, we had to wait in line for bread and milk,” Djokovic told BBC 5 Live in July.<\/p>\n
“These are defining moments, something I want to portray as a building block for me as a player and a person.<\/p>\n
“There is no regret or resentment. In contrary, it’s appreciation and gratitude. Everything in life happens as a reason.”<\/p>\n
In an expensive and often elitist sport, the young Djokovic was an outsider. Djokovic speaks about his father borrowing money from “wrong people” to fund his early tennis career.<\/p>\n
When he broke through, he disrupted the Roger Federer-Rafael Nadal rivalry that had come to engross fans. More emotive and more vocal than the pair on court, Djokovic was not universally beloved by fans.<\/p>\n
“I had to suppress a lot of emotions which, later on, surfaced on the court,” he told BBC 5 Live.<\/p>\n
“On the court, that’s where I felt safe and comfortable. It was a familiar ground.<\/p>\n
“Tennis is much more than a game and competition. It is defining ground for who I am as a person.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The documentary shows footage of a young Djokovic being interviewed on television. Asked how he feels about tennis,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":744129,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[101,118,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-744128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=744128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744128\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/744129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=744128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=744128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=744128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}