Novak Djokovic grew up during a difficult period, but decades later, he looks at it as something that made him a stronger person.
Djokovic was born in 1987 in Belgrade, Serbia, which was at the time part of Yugoslavia. In 1999, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) bombed Yugoslavia during the Kosovo War, with Belgrade being one of the main targets.
That's an environment that arguably the greatest tennis player of all time grew up in, and it is also something that formed him into the champion that he is today.
Now 37, Djokovic remembers everything that happened in his early days. He remembers how the war and bombing shaped him as he very quickly had to grow up.
During a recent interview with Argentinian publication La Nacion, the 24-time Grand Slam champion reflected on one of those experiences. He opened up about how it felt not knowing when another bomb would come.
"It’s a horror. The worst thing anyone can experience. It’s the fear of the unknown. Not knowing if the next bomb is going to hit your head. And so it was every day, the alarms, the sirens that woke us up every night when the planes were approaching."
In particular, Djokovic remembered one story. One night, his mom hit her head and fell down unconscious, which was a scary experience for everyone in the household.
"I remember my mother one night… because you’re sleeping and in the middle of the night you wake up because you hear the siren and you have to grab a bag and go down to the basement of the building to try to take shelter."
"The first time it happened, my mother got up in the dark, because we all slept together, we didn’t know what was going to happen and we cried every night. And she hit her head against the heater and was knocked unconscious."
At the time, Djokovic was 12 years old, but he also had two younger brothers, who, naturally, were more traumatized by the experience than he was at the time.
However, the 37-year-old also realizes that it strengthened his family and made him a stronger person as well. It's not an experience that he would wish anyone to experience, but having gone through it, he can now look also on the positives, even though there are not many.
"So it’s 3 in the morning and my father has his wife unconscious. I was 12 years old, and my younger brothers, 8 and 4, were crying. There was total panic. But it’s an experience that strengthened us as a family, as people."
"And I say it again: I don’t wish it on anyone. I want to make it very clear: I don’t think anyone should suffer through war to develop mental strength, there are other ways to do it. But for me it was a very important part of my development and as a small child I was forced to grow up."
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