Serbian success is NO JOKE

Despite ravaged by years of war, Serbia has shown tremendous resilience to rise as one of the sporting powers in the world

Nikola Jokic

During World War II, Vasko Popa hadn’t yet discovered the poet in him, but after his fight from the trenches with a partisan group and his eventual struggle at one of many German concentration camps in Beckerek (Serbia), he became one.

In the aftermath, now in his relatively plush accommodation at the University of Belgrade, arguably the greatest Serbian poet of all time wrote: “If you’re not smashed to bits. If you’re still in one piece and get up in one piece. Then you can play.”

Popa lived by these words until he gracefully bowed out to father time in 1991.

Read | Daniil Medvedev hails Novak Djokovic as the 'greatest'

Novak Djokovic was a spindly three-year-old ducking air raids - the undeniable realities of the Yugoslav Wars - with his family in Belgrade when Popa passed on.

Nicola Jokic wasn’t yet a concept when Popa died. At the time, his family was dealing with abject poverty and fear as Sombor lived between barbed wires and AK47 reverberations. Jokic was born into war in 1995, but it was the 1999 NATO bombings which still turn the screws in his head.

Djokovic along with former women’s world No1 Ana Ivanovic would train in empty swimming pools which were converted into makeshift tennis courts until the air raid sirens would go off.

Jokic, meanwhile, was being bullied by his two elder brothers who would hold the youngest down by his arms to throw knives around his head for the sport of it.

Outside, the world seemed like it was coming to an end anyway. And then there was darkness. Months of pitch-black nothing.

Eventually, the war ended, but the ‘Jokers’ remained. Neither had reason to laugh, but they were in one piece, and so they played. And, boy, do they play well.

At 36, Djokovic, with 23 Grand Slams as of winning the French Open on June 11, is statistically the greatest male tennis player of all time.

At 28, Jokic, with his first NBA title with the Denver Nuggets as of June 12, is the greatest Serbian basketball player of all time already.

‘Jokers’, they laugh now, but how?

“I don’t know (laughs),” says Belgrade-born Indian men’s basketball coach Vaselin Matic. “To steal a line from Djokovic, ’maybe it’s the water’, but even that can’t be true, wars and all, you see (laughs). I think it’s the system and the government. Of course, we have very good genetics, but more than that we are fantastic at team sports because we learn to work as a team very early on.”

Alekaader Miloje, a young anthropologist out of Montenegro, has a hypothesis that could explain what Matic has arbitrary intuition for.

Granted Montenegro isn’t part of Serbia anymore, but it was all part of Yugoslavia for most of the 20th century - as were most other Balkan countries - and so, much like Djokovic and Jokic, Miloje lived in the dark just the same.

“It’s not complicated, at least for me (laughs),” he starts off. “Your chances of survival increase if you’re in a group rather than if you’re by yourself. I know it sounds more like evolutionary biology than anthropology, I know (laughs), but when a large group of people are subject to war for such long periods of time, you learn how to work as a team rather intuitively.

“You have to work together, and that’s why so many Serbian families are so united. It’s a very close-knit society, unusually close to the Western world, but it’s normal to us. Our family and our communities saved us from certain death so we are loyal to a fault. And when you learn to work so cohesively with a family, team sports become a way of life rather than a forced concept,” says Miloje.

That explains why the Serbians have historically produced outstanding talent in basketball, handball, volleyball, water polo and even football. But, it doesn’t really reveal their success in tennis.

Djokovic. Monica Seles, Ivanovic. Jelena Jankovic. Victor Troiki…

“I think the difference between some of the bigger federations and the difference between our smaller countries, is that we have to earn our way,” former Croatian tennis player Mirjana Lucic-Baroni had said a few years ago.

“We don’t get a lot of help, and we have to do it ourselves and we have to really earn our way. In big countries like France, England, the USA, and Australia - when they have younger players, they make them into a superstar before they even win a match or two. And I think that’s the difference. For us, we really have to earn it. We have to work hard and work our way up.’’

Truth is, the Balkans have had to work hard for everything.

Take tennis player from Bosnia and Herzegovina Damir Dzumhar, for instance. He was born in 1992 in Sarajevo, not far from the ice arena which was part of the 1984 Olympics. Days after Dzumhar’s birth, the arena was destroyed, and those in proximity thought it prudent to turn the basement into morgue, and erstwhile wood benches into coffins. Poignant.

“You have these psychological factors that have affected many generations, talking about the tough times in wars and so forth,” Djokovic had said in an interaction recently. “People also live pretty low standards compared to the Western European countries, and they have to fight for each day. I think that’s something that strengthens them mentally.

“And that’s a little factor that a lot of athletes carry inside their heads, and subconsciously they are great fighters and they appreciate everything life gives them,” he added.

Perhaps, it’s gratitude then?

“That, I think it is,” says Matic. “We are a very, very happy people even though there is so much going on. We love our country and we love people and we’re very jovial. We’re not living in the past. We live in the future. Also, we are all very proud of our people when they do well because we know what they had to go through to get here. There is only love for all of them.

“There is obvious competition but there is respect and love. It’s magical,” says Matic, whose son Andrija used to play with Jokic in the Serbian league.

But Matic holds a special place for Djokovic, saying it’s one thing to be good at a team sport, but it’s another to be the greatest at a sport where it’s just you against the world.

“The thing is that we all have this mentality, when you underestimate us, we come back stronger, and for more,” he says. “We’ll do anything to get to the highest level. Absolutely anything. Just look at the sacrifices Djokovic is making. Most people won’t have that dedication.”

Perhaps dodging smoke bombs at 3 am does that to you. Perhaps watching a hospital razed to the ground by two rockets at noon does that to you. Or maybe, it’s the literal hunger you feel when standing in line for the possibility of milk and bread at 5 am.

Djokovic and Jokic will never be able to erase the scars of war. In fact, Djokovic admitted that he is still triggered by fire alarms, and Jokic has few he will call friends even now.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is the official term, and the Serbians found a solution for the most irksome of problems: sport. Guess who is laughing now?!