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Novak News & Interviews Vol.2

221K views 2K replies 116 participants last post by  talicnitom 
#1 ·
Yeah, I thought of one last thread we needed... you know, for all the articles about him that are written, etc.

NOW we are set with the threads I believe.

But this will be the lovely place where our Serbian friends post the articles and we wait for translations :)
"Volume 1"
 
#106 ·
I don't think Nole will play Beijing or Shanghai. He has a smart team and he realises how important good scheduling is.

I'm sure he'll announce it later on, so as not to ruin the tournament's chances to sell tickets.

At least, I hope he does that. After the season he's had, who could blame him for taking a short time to collect himself?
 
#108 ·
He is actually making "mystery" out of nothing, really...that should be one of the most important days in Novak's life?? This is something chit chat papers would put on headline...and no "meat" at all.

Now I see...that on Serbian, he called it.. important commitment, and on english "one of the most important days in his life". I mean..."serious journalist":rolleyes:
I guess he needed more followers.

Rosie, Miljan is getting married :lol: my condolences
 
#110 ·
Was Sherlock Irish :lol:?
You have talent girl...the way you're coping with serbian news is amazing:)
Now that you posted these pictures...they look familiar, like I've seen them already.
Kovac? Oh my god...I used to "live" there...for 5 or 6 years. My university is 100m from there. Kovac means Blacksmith :lol:
 
#112 ·
I felt my ears burning :p Guess some of you here miss my occasional drools of Miljan :inlove: during matches! :D But - don't worry - as Amber says, I knew he was married since December 2009 and have seen the photos too. And indeed Mila is a lovely little baby - 19 months old now and growing quickly from last time I saw a photo of her.

So don't worry Sasha :kiss: My broken heart will mend - after all, I still have Janko in his underwear to sustain me through those lonely moments :p

And seriously, all the best to Miljan and Suzana on their special day - hope everything goes well and Nole performs his duties well :yeah:

Bye for now :wavey:
 
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#116 ·
@Ufiors, out of curiosity? Are you fedtard? like Nole? hate him? I'm curious... :)
 
#123 ·
Pete Sampras: Djokovic’s Season Best I’ve Seen in My Lifetime
by Tom Gainey


Speaking before an ATP Champions circuit event Thursday in South Florida, Pete Sampras heralded Novak Djokovic’s current season as the best he’s ever seen.

“At least in my lifetime, the best ever,” Sampras told the Palm Beach Post.

“I always thought Novak was a bit temperamental and would go through these lapses that would prevent him from winning majors,” Sampras said to the paper. “And now you look - he lost the first two sets against Roger and boom! He recovered within a couple of minutes. He’s got a short memory now. He’s progressed into this great champion.”

This year the 64-3 Djokovic has won 10 titles including three Grand Slam events.

Sampras also opined on the current player revolt brewing on the tour and the US Open scheduling issue. “Quite honestly, the U.S. Open has it coming,” Sampras said. “The handwriting’s on the wall.”

Sampras went on to beat Jim Courier last night to win the HSBC Tennis Cup held at the Bank Atlantic Center in Sunrise, Florida.


Pete. :worship:
 
#139 ·
Just re-watched the USO final, god it really does change the spectator experience when you know the score! :lol:
I enjoyed it a lot more than the first time, plus I could fully concentrate on the beauty of the shots and the rallies rather than biting my nails all the time. It's actually refreshing. :D
I must say, even though a bit late, that the match was glorious, amazing. And what surprised me the most... in the fourth Nole even played better than in the three previous sets. He flatten out his shots a lot more and they had more sting, impressive to see. Can he surpass ever that level? or can anyone else for that matter? With that game I don't see how 2012 is going to be any different. Only the end of the world would derail Nole from achieving eternal glory. I'm astonished and more in love with him than ever. :sobbing:
 
#147 ·
That was the pick of some people who know him and have watched the post-retirement press conference. The moment they saw the sidekick, their reaction was 'he is overreacting'...
Skipping Beijing should be a no-brainer even if he were 100% fit. For the past week or so he is partying and having gluten fun in Serbia.
 
#150 ·
I'm such a fangirl of Steve... :hearts:

Playing Ball: Watching and Learning 09/23/2011 - 4:10 PM
Steve Tignor

Tennis-ball-rebound-1a How much can we learn from observing other tennis players? Part of me suspects that it’s the only way we learn the sport, and that all of the tennis lessons in the world, all of the “racquet back”s and “ move your feet”s put together, won’t help you as much as a few glances at a pro’s service toss or forehand stance. When I began to go to clinics when I was 10 or 11, it wasn’t our club’s teaching pro who taught me my Western grip and low-to-high swing. It was two players whom I watched from a distance: one was Bjorn Borg, the other was an older kid from my local courts, the best young player in town. If today’s No. 1 men’s player, Novak Djokovic, is any indication, athletic talent begins with the ability, and the desire, to mimic what you see.

In my case, that desire, because it's automatic and unconscious, didn’t end when I was 12. It has stayed with me and is still with me today. So much so that sometimes I don’t notice it myself. Six or seven years ago, during that brief window in time when Andy Roddick was at the top of the game, and his forehand seemed to be the state of the art, I heard someone on the next court who was watching me say something like, “He tries to smack his forehand like Roddick.” I hadn’t realized it, but he was right; the idea of Roddick’s inside-out forehand, which was once a weapon for him, and which I’d watched countless times during that period, had seeped into my motion, my footwork, my mindset.

As Roddick descended and Roger Federer ascended, I tried to follow in the Swiss’s footsteps as well. This time it was more of a conscious effort, which may explain why it was mostly a failure. None of my shots remotely resemble Federer’s, but when he was at his best, there was no way not to be influenced by him. Mid-match, I would try to get myself to move like him, with an easy flow around the court and an easy, loose swing into the ball. The trick was to stay relaxed, but at the same time to be more aggressive with your feet. It typically worked, until it didn’t. I found that it was much easier to get myself into this mode when I was winning than it was when things started to go south. After a few misses, I would tense back up. I guess it’s not surprising that Federer, until very recently, has been one of the game’s great front-runners. He’s at his best when he’s at his easiest.

As a lefty, though, the player who has influenced me the most in recent years has been my fellow sinister-sider, Rafael Nadal. The many hours of watching him construct rallies have been well spent. Without thinking about it, I now play to a lefty’s natural strengths more than I ever have. I swing my forehand more sharply into my opponent’s backhand corner. As Nadal has shown against Federer and many others, it’s not a shot that needs to be a winner to be very effective; by adding sidespin to it, you can get the ball to tail away from the other guy’s backhand in a hurry. It’s also a play that leads to the type of easy volleys that we see Nadal hit so often. I’ve started to imitate Rafa on those shots as well. He hits them the way a good clay-courter should hit them, by angling them off and not relying on pace to get them past his opponent. When I do the same thing, by carving around my crosscourt backhand volley, the ball will bounce a little wider and shorter than normal, and often just out of reach of a surprised opponent. It helps, I suppose, that I play almost exclusively on clay.

How about the latest No. 1? I’ve switched to Novak Djokovic’s racquet this summer, but the game has yet to follow. As with Federer, I don’t hit the ball like Djokovic, and defense will never be my specialty the way it is his. We’ll see what happens; judging from the past, one of these days, I’ll find myself doing, or attempting, something Nole-esque without even realizing it. Hopefully I won’t try to copy his sliding open-stance backhand dig on asphalt. That might be the last thing I do on any type of court.

From this evidence—and I can't be the only one who keeps internalizing this stuff—we're always learning from other, better tennis players. What I wondered during this year’s U.S. Open was whether all of that exposure would give my game any kind of temporary bump upward in quality. This used to happen when I was a junior, though for some reason it was never as noticeable on a tennis court as it was on a pool table. I owned a copy of The Color of Money in high school, and it never failed to help when I got on the tables at the bowling alley in town. (Of course, it could also have been the ear-splitting Bon Jovi and the deep stench of cigarette smoke embedded in the green felt that put me in the mood.) A few minutes of watching the sharks in that movie were enough to raise my own level for an hour or two. I think, as much as anything, it was the simple sight of seeing their shots drop in the pockets over and over that gave me an unconscious feeling of confidence.

(Aside: I should also note that The Color of Money has lived on in my mind when I play tennis as well. If nothing is going right, a phrase from one of those sharks, Grady Seasons, comes back to me: “It’s like a nightmare, isn’t it? It just keeps getting worse and worse.” Tom Cruise says those words back to him in this scene (Seasons comes back with one of the all-time great retorts: “Ya got lucky, ya lucky [so-and-so]”). The scene also contains another immortal line, when Paul Newman, after putting the 1 and 9 balls in the corner, gives a bearded John Turturro this friendly piece of advice: “Wipe your nose, will ya, junior?” Tennis could use some more of that, don’t you think? Maybe from Federer to Djokovic on a changeover?)

This year, after nearly three weeks of watching, I finally got out to play on the Wednesday after the Open. Visions of Rafa and Nole still danced in my head. But as I waited for my partner to show up, I started to watch a decent-looking local junior on the next court. The kid, who might have been 16, was warming up. Or, I guess that’s what you would call it. He stood flat-footed as he slapped at his ground strokes. He practiced a tweener as often as he did his forehand. He loafed through the early drills that his coach did with him. He didn’t appear to get to full speed until half an hour into it. At first I shook my head, until I remembered that on a lot of days when I was 16, I hadn’t looked a whole lot different when I was practicing.

By the time my partner got there and we started to hit, all the visions of tennis greatness I had witnessed at Flushing Meadows had been replaced by the image of this loafing teen. It worked like a charm. I went out with one simple plan: Not to be like him, or like my own teenage self. If I was going to take the time to play, I might as well give myself the best chance to do it well. I had one goal, not to be lazy, and I achieved it. I played with a clear mind from start to finish, and may have had my best day of the season so far.

Knowing who to imitate is part of being a good tennis player. But it seems that knowing how not to act on a court can come in handy, too. Plus, it’s a whole lot easier not to look like a lazy junior than it is to look like Novak Djokovic. Maybe I’ve been watching the wrong people all this time.

*****

Have a good weekend.
 
#151 ·
Djokovic wins over tough crowd :)

Sun Sep 11 09:04AM


Novak Djokovic staged an epic comeback against Roger Fededer to reach the US Open final and in doing so won over the hearts of the New York crowd.

Federer has long been the darling of the Flushing Meadows crowd - you don't win five titles there without picking up a little bit of love on the way - but things might just have changed on Arthur Ashe on what did indeed prove to be a super Saturday of action.

They love a winner in New York and Djokovic is most certainly that. But Federer has long been the crowd's favourite, deservedly so, and it was the Swiss who enjoyed most of the support during their semi-final.

That is until Djokovic was staring two match points in the face. He saved the first with a wonder shot before turning to the crowd and appealing for a bit of recognition. They responded and showered him with the appreciation he deserved, leaving the Serb to get back to the business of saving the second and going on to win the next three sets and seal a remarkable victory.
enze88er

"I needed to get some energy from the crowd. It was normal to expect they were a little bit more on the side of Roger, maybe the greatest player ever. It was no surprise," Djokovic said.

"But I thought at that certain moment I had to get some of the crowd energy behind me. And it worked."

The crowd's cheering of the Serb may well have provided further proof, if it were needed, of a changing of the guard in men's tennis. The Flushing Meadows faithful have a new hero, and his name is Djokovic.

In a country so obsessed by winning, it's perhaps fitting that a man with a win record of 63-2 this season should take over the mantle from Federer. And if he can now just beat Rafael Nadal in Monday's final and add the US Open to his burgeoning collection of Grand Slam titles, he will be able to confirm his status as the new darling of New York.
 
#156 ·
Wow, thanks, that was a beautiful and insightful article on Nole from Cetojevic, it also explains some things unknown to his fans till now. :D
 
#157 ·
Past greats awed by Novak Djokovic By Sandra Harwitt

[...]

Four former Grand Slam champions -- Jimmy Connors, Pete Sampras, Jim Courier and Michael Chang -- kicked off the 12-city 2011 Champions Series senior tour last week and weighed in. While at their first tour stop at the Bank Atlantic Center in South Florida, the quartet were eager to chat about the new boss man of tennis, Djokovic.

"It's a progression being the best player in the world," Sampras said. "It just doesn't happen overnight. He has a firm handle at the top spot now and it's really one of the best years I've ever seen. To beat Nadal, one of the all-time greats all times, six times. To beat Roger [Federer], arguably the best player of all time, [four] times, it's just an incredible year. And I think he'll win more Grand Slams; he's that good."​

Sampras had an opportunity to meet with Djokovic this summer when the Serb was in Los Angeles. The two had hoped to share a hit, but Sampras, disappointingly, could not because of a sore back. But the American was more than happy to be the voice of experience.

"We had dinner, and we just talked for a couple of hours," Sampras said. "He's really a nice kid, very sincere and he was interested in my career and how I stayed up on top of the game, which is what he's trying to do. I just told him what I tried to do, for my personality, was to try and keep it simple. At the Grand Slams I never wanted to do anything because I only wanted to focus on my tennis. I think he took what I said to heart."​

To judge just how good Djokovic is these days, the former champions keyed in on his recent U.S. Open semifinal match. Djokovic faced two match points before coming back to beat Federer 6-7 (7), 4-6, 6-3, 6-2, 7-5. The prevailing opinion is that match validated Djokovic's improved mental fortitude.

"He has a short memory now," Sampras said. "He used to be temperamental and would let bad points linger in his head. But he turned it right around in that third set [against Federer at the Open] to play great tennis."​

Michael Chang said, "This year, Djokovic put his foot in the door and said, 'Hey, take a look at me.' It's been a lot of fun to watch him play this year. I've got to think it's something more than his [new gluten-free] diet. He's playing with an unbelievable amount of confidence. Even when he was down those two match points to Federer, he was kind of laughing it off and didn't get dejected."​

Once Djokovic began believing, he was almost invincible; his style of play became really off-putting for players. It doesn't hurt that he finally made a few necessary technical improvements to his serve and forehand, which were the two weaker aspects of his game.

"He gives these guys trouble because he plays a little bit old-school, taking the ball earlier, catching the ball on the rise, driving the ball flat," Connors said. "And a lot of the topspin the guys drive at him comes right into his zone. He turns defense into offense pretty good."​

The former champions view themselves as fans as well as experts of the game. So it's not surprising they're all watching Djokovic carefully to see how long he can keep up this amazing level. Although we've seen guys maintain control for long periods of time, there's always the next guy waiting to step up.

"This time last year we were talking about the Rafael Nadal era, and he had won three of the four majors and was the dominant force on tour," Courier said. "Now it's Djokovic. What it will be this time next year, well, that's why we watch because there's no way to predict it. But he's set the bar, particularly for Nadal, to go and try to solve the puzzle of Novak."​

In the meantime, instead of wondering how long Djokovic can linger at the top, Connors laughingly suggested there could be a side business for the Serb.

"Not 16 months ago, he couldn't last two sets and now he's outdueling Nadal on clay," Connors said. "What he has done in the last year, not only with his game, but his conditioning, I don't know what it is. I don't even know if he knows what it is. But if he could bottle that and sell it, it would be unbelievable."​
 
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