{"id":458480,"date":"2026-02-09T16:50:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-09T16:50:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/458480\/"},"modified":"2026-02-09T16:50:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T16:50:09","slug":"novak-djokovic-delivers-once-in-a-lifetime-moment-to-ilia-malinin-at-winter-olympics-atp-tour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/458480\/","title":{"rendered":"Novak Djokovic delivers \u2018once-in-a-lifetime moment\u2019 to Ilia Malinin at Winter Olympics | ATP Tour"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>        ATP Tour<br \/>\n    Djokovic delivers \u2018once-in-a-lifetime moment\u2019 at Winter Olympics<\/p>\n<p>Serbian spends Sunday evening watching Ilia Malinin win figure skating gold for US<\/p>\n<p>February 09, 2026<\/p>\n<p>            <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/djokovic-malinin-winter-olympics-2026.jpg\" alt=\"Novak Djokovic watched Ilia Malinin at the Winter Olympics on Sunday evening in Milano Cortina. \"\/><\/p>\n<p>Phil Walter\/Elsa\/Getty Images <\/p>\n<p>        Novak Djokovic watched Ilia Malinin at the Winter Olympics on Sunday evening in Milano Cortina.<br \/>\n        By ATP Staff<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.atptour.com\/en\/players\/novak-djokovic\/d643\/overview\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Novak Djokovic<\/a> is no stranger to excellence, and on Sunday evening he found himself appreciating it from a different perspective.<\/p>\n<p>Just seven days after reaching his 11th <a href=\"https:\/\/www.atptour.com\/en\/tournaments\/australian-open\/580\/overview\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Australian Open<\/a> final, where he fell to World No. 1 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.atptour.com\/en\/players\/carlos-alcaraz\/a0e2\/overview\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Carlos Alcaraz<\/a>, the 38-year-old Serbian attended the figure skating team event at the Winter Olympic Games in Milano Cortina.<\/p>\n<p><a rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.atptour.com\/en\/news\/atp-number-one-club\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1767418027_359_atp-no-1-club-banner-article.jpg\" alt=\"\u201cATP\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Djokovic, sitting alongside his wife Jelena, was visibly captivated by 21-year-old phenom Ilia Malinin after he had helped the United States to Olympic gold.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI did see Djokovic, it\u2019s so unreal,\u201d Malinin said after his skate. \u201cI heard that after I landed my backflip, he had his hands over his head. That\u2019s incredible. That\u2019s a once-in-a-lifetime moment: Seeing a famous tennis player watching my performance\u2026 I\u2019m absolutely blown away.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Olympic Games hold special meaning for Djokovic. In Paris in 2024, he completed one of the final missing pieces of his resume, defeating Lexus ATP Head2Head rivals <a href=\"https:\/\/www.atptour.com\/en\/players\/rafael-nadal\/n409\/overview\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Rafael Nadal<\/a> and Alcaraz en route to his first gold medal. It was a victory he has since called one of the most important of his illustrious career.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ATP Tour Djokovic delivers \u2018once-in-a-lifetime moment\u2019 at Winter Olympics Serbian spends Sunday evening watching Ilia Malinin win figure&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":458481,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428],"class_list":["post-458480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=458480"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458480\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/458481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=458480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=458480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=458480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}