Djokovic’s son is taking titles at age 7
Novak Djokovic’s son took his first title on the same day as his father. Nole won his sixth trophy at the Rome Masters and his first in 2022, while seven-year-old Stefan opened the cup series in Serbia with a small club tournament at the tennis center of the 20-time TBS champion. Obviously, it didn’t matter much – the result is secondary. The main thing is to relive the experience of an official match.
Though Novak almost got emotional at the post-match press conference, the family was preparing for the double triumph. Jock shared that they had spent the last few days chatting about routines, how to properly tune in before a match and how to deal with excitement. “He stayed up that night and showed me right and left strokes, how he was going to move. Did imitations without a racket, just like when I was a kid. The first tournament or an official match is always remembered with fondness,” Djokovic said.
Novak does not pressure his son or force him to take the racket without his own desire. So Stefan takes the initiative himself and gladly supports his father from the stands.
Already at the age of three he accompanied his father to Grand Slam tournaments. Cameras always caught the boy in the arms of his mother Helen. The most famous of such family trips happened at Wimbledon in 2018 – it was just won by Djokovic. After the match, Novak was ecstatic about his son’s presence on the court: “It’s amazing because for the first time in my life someone is screaming: “Daddy! Daddy!”
Footage also appeared from Patrick Muratoglu’s practice facility in Monte Carlo, where Nole was throwing balls at his son and he was trying to hit a two-handed shot. “As long as he’s doing well, he’s in love with the sport.” The tandem is also practicing at home in Belgrade: His father took Stefan to the court of his center. There, the tennis player admits, he practically lives, if not travels to tournaments. “My kids were involved in all kinds of sports, including tennis. I was afraid someone would want to play hockey,” Djokovic laughed. But unlike his older brother, the younger one – four-year-old Tara – is not yet as enthusiastic about tennis as she is about sports in general.
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“I’ve been promoting tennis in my house, but they don’t care”
If that layout seems realistic, a fellow Big 3 player has a problem with continuity. Roger Federer’s four children aren’t particularly fond of their father’s hobby. Two pairs of twins – girls Myla Rose and Charlene Riva and boys Lennart and Leo – are learning the basics of tennis, but only to spend time with their friends. And while the brothers are just under seven, the sisters are already 13! Isn’t that a little late?
“I didn’t want to be the only guy whose kids didn’t play tennis. Especially with my background and my wife’s background,” Federer confusedly shared. Mirka tried out as a professional player in the early 2000s and made it to the top 100, but then she had to leave the professionals early because of a foot injury.
Her father admitted that at first he was cheating, even bribing his offspring to help them get used to their favorite sport: “If you do well, you’ll get something sweet. The method seemed to work: The paparazzi increasingly caught the boys on the practice courts with the 20-time Grand Slam champion. Federer said they were really getting better at tennis: they even had a coach assigned to them, but the boys never got close to their first tournaments.
Federer lamented that not only did the kids not aspire to the court, but they didn’t even google their father on the Internet — they didn’t know about the regalia. “For a long time, the kids had no idea what I had accomplished in my tennis career. It was their friends who revealed to them that I was No. 1 in the world. They were literally at a loss for words. My wins were never an important topic at home.”
Eventually, the Swiss got tired of fighting for his children’s attention for the business of a lifetime and promised himself not to become that crazy dad – no more insisting on the choice. “I promoted tennis in my house with games against Rafa, Novak and so on. But they didn’t care. We tried to give them a racket in one hand and the ball in the other and see what would happen.” Apparently, we won’t see a new chapter in the Big 3 confrontation anytime soon. All the more, Rafael Nadal’s plans do not yet include becoming a father.
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