By ADAM ZAGORIA with STEPHEN PERRINE
NEW YORK — Most tennis stars have childhoods filled with country clubs and luxury travel. Novak Djokovic’s upbringing in Serbia was filled with NATO bombers and exploding buildings.
While Djokovic has talked in the past about spending several months living in bomb shelters during the 1999 bombing of Belgrade, it’s only now that the world’s No. 1 tennis player is opening up about just how close he came to not making it through the Serbian war.
“I think Novak plays it down a bit, but his story is terrifying,” says Stephen Perrine, publisher of Zinc Ink books, who collaborated with Djokovic on his new book, Serve to Win—a combination of autobiography and prescriptive nutrition book that details how Novak became No. 1 by changing his eating habits.
Djokovic advanced to the third round of the U.S. Open Friday with a 7-6 (2), 6-2, 6-2 win over Benjamin Becker.
In the book, Djokovic recounts a moment when he and his family were fleeing their apartment building during a bombing raid, and trying to reach a bomb shelter 300 yards away. As his parents and younger brothers ran ahead of him, Djokovic fell and lost sight of them:
“And then it happened,” he writes. “From behind I heard something tearing open the sky, as though an enormous snow shovel were scraping ice off the clouds. Still sprawled on the ground, I turned and looked back at our home.
“Rising up from over the roof of our building came the steel gray triangle of an F-117 bomber. I watched in horror as its great metal belly opened directly above me, and two laser-guided missiles dropped out of it, taking aim at my family, my friends, my neighborhood—everything I’d ever known….I didn’t stop shivering for the rest of the night.”
“Novak’s experience during the war informs how he prepares for matches,” Perrine says. “It taught him how to live in the moment, and not worry about the future. You can see how that focus and fearlessness plays out on the court.”
