'He Was Lost': Djokovic's Mentor Reveals How He Turned His 2024 Season Around
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Novak Djokovic might be the most successful tennis player in the history of tennis, but he also needed guidance this year.
The 2024 season didn't start well for Djokovic. He reached "only" the semi-finals at the Australian Open, before he exited the Indian Wells Open already in the third round in a shock loss to Luca Nardi.
Only a few months later, he managed to completely turn his season around, celebrating a triumph at the 2024 Paris Olympics, where he won his desired gold medal.
Earlier this year, Djokovic parted ways with his coach Goran Ivanisevic, and in Ivanisevic's absence, he didn't really work with any permanent coach. Still, there was someone helping him along the way.
Djokovic's good friend and mentor, Nenad Zimonjic, worked with the 24-time Grand Slam champion, even though he didn't really serve as his coach, mostly as a mentor.
As Zimonjic, who is a former doubles World No. 1 and eight-time Grand Slam champion, explained in an interview with Ubitennis, he has been helping Djokovic since he was 12.
The 48-year-old Serbian also revealed that he helped Djokovic and Ivanisevic ahead of the 2022 Wimbledon Championships, which the Serbian player won after beating Nick Kyrgios in the final.
"I’ve been his mentor on the court and off the court, basically, since I met him when he was 12. Whenever he was in trouble, which was at Wimbledon 2022, he asked me to come and help the team. I managed to do that and help them to win Wimbledon together with my good friend Goran Ivanisevic."
Zimonjic then explained that this year, he found Djokovic very demotivated and lost when he was asked to help him. He knew his results were not good and wanted to change it.
"Earlier this year I found him in a situation where he was not really motivated and he was a little bit lost with his game, having no good results compared to 2023 and struggling after Australia this year."
According to Zimonjic, he managed to change that very quickly ahead of the Monte-Carlo Masters, where the Serbian player reached the semi-finals of the ATP Masters 1000 tournament.
He then had a good run at the Roland Garros, but that had to be cut short because of an injury. Still, it seems that Zimonjic's advice in that short period worked well for the 24-time major winner.
"I managed to fix it quite quickly and unexpectedly. Novak didn’t have any expectations before Monte Carlo, but the two weeks that we worked together before the tournament helped him reach the semi-finals."
Zimonjic remained relatively tight-lipped on what exactly he told Djokovic, but he suggested that it was his help that also then made it possible for Djokovic to win the gold medal at the Paris Olympics, which was his ultimate goal for the 2024 season.
"Those new things we worked on during this period also helped him win gold at the Paris Olympics which was his biggest goal."
In 2025, Zimonjic might help Djokovic again, but likely not at the start of the season, as Djokovic shockingly started working with his former rival Andy Murray as his coach.
Latest Comments
- Kyrgios will do anything to stay in the news.shirley19-12-2024
- A technical error.
MrMustard18-12-2024 - All that is said , all that is done. Nick has 0 grand slams wins. Everything else is hot 🥵 air.MrMustard18-12-2024
- All that is said , all that isMrMustard18-12-2024
- Kyrgios is a jerk.shirley17-12-2024
- If Jessica Pegula had to undergo such horror for using a bannes substance, so do these two tennis players. Penalty should apply to all players regardless of their excuses. They are professionals and know better!!
Stella112-12-2024 - All players should be treated the same for taking banned substances, if your no 1 in the world or no 300 man or woman you should not be allowed to keep playing,,VPH108-12-2024
- Ah, censored again. No one gets to read my comment. LOLjjluvsports08-12-2024
- Reynolds, could you list all the wars started by the U.S. and U.K., or will you run out of paper? Hypocrisy.jjluvsports06-12-2024
- IDK, it looks like to me that Raducanu should praise herself and her team for 'gaming the system' as in playing the points and ranking game. When you look at her season of wild cards, skipping tournaments (including the Paris Olympics!), retiring from losing matches and avoiding qualifying rounds, it seems like there was some plan to move up the ranks without actually playing a lot of tennis. And it worked! Congrats!RealityCheckers04-12-2024