For almost 150 years, professional tennis has remained the preserve of Western European, American and Australian elites. The four Grand Slams tournaments that take place in these territories are their high temples, and Wimbledon is their sanctum sanctorum.
The 2024 Men’s Championships will not be remembered, as pundits suggest, for a changing of the guard with a new generation taking over from Novak Djokovic – statistically and indisputably the greatest male tennis player of all time. The Serbian legend was playing less than six weeks after a complicated knee surgery and remains the favourite to beat anyone not named Carlos Alcaraz or Jannik Sinner in a five-set match. This year’s largely predictable men’s tournament will be remembered instead for Djokovic’s fiery outburst at a Centre Court crowd that he felt disrespected by, during a fourth-round encounter against Denmark’s Holger Rune.
As a disruptor who upended tennis’ perfect rivalry, the metronomic Djokovic — who possesses none of Federer’s balletic beauty or Nadal’s ferocious allure — has long incurred the wrath of Western tennis fans. His edgy personality, eccentric beliefs in alternative “medicines”, public association with far-right Serbian ultra-nationalists, and infamous anti-vaccine stance have made him an easy target. But Djokovic is also at the receiving end of a not-so-thinly veiled racism that places the Western world at the top of a White sub-hierarchy, and East Europeans at the bottom. After the European Union was expanded in May 2004 to include 10 Eastern European countries, Britain’s political elites exploited animosity towards Romanians, Poles and other people of Slavic origin, who are over-represented in the UK’s working class.
Some Centre Court fans may or may not have been cheering for Rune by elongating the ‘u’ in the Dane’s name, but Djokovic’s prickly reaction, perceiving the chants as boos, was the result of an entire career spent dealing with hostile crowds who refuse to give him the respect that he has earned by producing the most mind-boggling records in the history of the sport.
As the winner of 24 Grand Slams (and counting), winning each Grand Slam at least thrice, and all Masters 1000 tournaments at least twice, and holder of the record for most weeks spent ranked number one in the world, Djokovic has, like the Williams sisters, “corrupted” tennis’ pristine walled garden.
Unlike outliers from generations past, such as Althea Gibson, Arthur Ashe, Martina Navratilova and Ivan Lendl who largely conformed to elite Western expectations by not drawing attention to themselves, Djokovic and the Williams sisters have proudly embraced and showcased their identities.
John McEnroe brought up Djokovic’s origins after the skirmish on Centre Court, saying, “Don’t you think that there have been at least 100 matches over the course of the last 10 or 15 years where Novak Djokovic has been disrespected because of how good he is? Why? What has he done that has been that bad? Name something. That he competes as hard as anyone has ever competed on a tennis court? Is it the look or where he’s from?”
McEnroe elaborated – “This is what he’s been dealing with for 10, 15, 20 years that people have been doing this. I admire the guts that he had to say it there. That takes something … He doesn’t deserve that at this stage. We need him, and he’s been too great for our game in my opinion.”
Djokovic is a thoughtful, generous champion who has advocated for increased distribution of prize money among lower-ranked players (in a sport where those outside the top 100 struggle to make ends meet), provided financial assistance to upcoming stars, and used his foundation to positively impact the lives of children in his native Serbia. During this year’s Championships, he spoke eloquently about how tennis could lose ground to sports such as paddle or pickleball if it doesn’t become more accessible and affordable.
Unlike his two greatest rivals who grew up in comfortable, upper-class, first-world homes, Djokovic came from limited means in a war-torn country that faced sanctions and embargoes. He recalls waiting in lines for bread and milk, and taking shelter in a Belgrade basement during NATO’s bombing of Serbia for 11 weeks in 1999.
A child with the potential to become a world-beater in elite sports like tennis or golf will remain forever undiscovered in large parts of Asia and Africa. The journey of the greatest male tennis player of all time, overcoming impossible odds to reach the pinnacle of the sport, serves as a beacon of inspiration to a much broader global audience than the stories of his rivals and successors from the Western first world.
The writer is a marketing and consumer research professional
