Over six seasons and a dozen Grand Slam titles, Novak Djokovic and Goran Ivanisevic have become one of the most stable and lethal duos in tennis, and perhaps all sports.
The sight of the Serbian and Croatian cursing each other out in the tensest moments of the world’s biggest matches has become as familiar as Djokovic winning yet another of his record 24 major championships.
On Wednesday, Djokovic announced in an enthusiastic social media post that the partnership had ended in recent days, with he and Ivanisevic deciding to no longer work together. However, it is rare for tennis coaches to break away from players with Djokovic’s track record and stature since their remuneration often includes a percentage of the player’s winnings.
“Our on-court chemistry has had its ups and downs, but our friendship has always been strong,” Djokovic wrote. “I’m proud to say (not sure if he is) that in addition to winning tournaments together, we also had a side battle in Parchisi (the board game) that lasted…for many years. And this tournament never stops for us.
Ivanisevic, 52, was not available for comment.
The move comes after a tumultuous few months for a player who is often at his best in turmoil. Djokovic, 36, is one of tennis’ great researchers, someone who is always looking for another answer, another way to gain an advantage. It’s now more urgent than ever, with his years of playing tennis dwindling and his task of retaining the next generation of talent, led by the ever-improving Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner, becoming more and more difficult with each passing year. month.
Djokovic had one of the best seasons of his career last year. He won three Grand Slam titles to cement his claim to the greatest unofficial crown of all time and reached the final of the fourth major tournament, losing in five sets at Wimbledon to Alcaraz in a match that seemed within his reach. He finished the year ranked No. 1 in the world, despite playing far fewer tournaments than his main competitors, and won the year-end ATP Tour Finals.
Since then, however, he has endured a very unusual few months, losing three of four matches against Sinner, including the semi-final of the Australian Open, a tournament that Djokovic has won 10 times. Earlier this month, he suffered a disheartening early-round defeat to another Italian, Luca Nardi, aged just 20 and ranked 123rd in the world, at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells. Djokovic later withdrew from the Miami Open, but still became the talk of the tournament as the quarterfinals unfolded on Wednesday.
Off the court, Djokovic has completely changed his management team. In the fall, he parted ways with IMG, the sports and media conglomerate that had handled his affairs for years, and also parted ways with Edoardo Artaldi, who represented him, as well as his gate -longtime spokesperson, Elena Cappellaro. The move comes a little less than two years after his breakup with Marian Vajda, the former Slovak pro who, along with Djokovic, had tapped Ivanisevic largely to help with his serve.
Ivanisevic did just that, helping turn Djokovic’s serve into a dangerous weapon; one of the most effective in the sport rather than just a starting point. The Croatian possessed a lethal serve when playing and achieved surprising results with Djokovic, whose first serve averaged 120.1 miles per hour in 2023 compared to 115.4 in 2015.
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After the split, Vajda said Djokovic told him he only wanted to work with one coach.
Like most top players, Djokovic has gone through many coaches. As a teenager, the two most important voices in tennis were Niki Pilic, a top player from the former Yugoslavia in the 1970s, and Jelena Gencic, who discovered him at a clinic she ran in his hometown, in the mountains, when he was a child. He often describes Pilic and Gencic as his godfathers of tennis.
During his professional career, Djokovic has crossed paths with a list of established tennis names, including Andre Agassi, Boris Becker and Ivanisevic, all Wimbledon champions. He also worked with former pros Todd Martin and Riccardo Piatti, an Italian recognized as one of the world’s greatest tennis minds.
The constants throughout all these changes were Djokovic’s competitiveness and his need to find new ways to compete with his biggest rivals, first Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, and now Alcaraz and Sinner, as well as his willingness to open up his mind to new ideas.
None of these coaches, however, had the apparent mingling of minds that he enjoyed with Ivanisevic, who also became an excellent explainer of Djokovic’s approach to the sport and his on-court antics. He talked about Djokovic tearing up his team and his own game on the practice court in the run-up to Grand Slams, even when he was in top form and a heavy favorite.
Ivanisevic attributed this to their Balkan roots, shared passions and mutual comfort with high-volume debates, even when they took place on international television, with Ivanisevic bearing the brunt of the tirades.
“It’s okay,” Ivanisevic said after the matches. “It’s absolutely fine.”
(Top photo: Paul Crock/AFP via Getty Images)