“I went to practice with Novak and three other boys,” Gencic said in Belgrade in 2010. “There were many other boys and girls, and when they were on the tennis court, they don’t think about bombs. That’s the point of, the reason of, practicing. You don’t think about that.”
Gencic remembered picking practice sites based on where the bombs had fallen the night before, reasoning that NATO would not bomb the same place again.
“I could feel it in my house; it was terrible,” she said. “My sister was very hurt by the bombs and 16 months later she died.”
But the tone of that interview was surprisingly not bitter. Though Gencic expressed regret that she had lost touch with Djokovic at that stage and expressed resentment toward Srdjan for not keeping her better informed, she remembered the eight years they did spend in each other’s frequent company with great tenderness.
“Oh, special boy, that boy was unbelievable,” she said. “Very intelligent. He knew very well what to do, how much to do. He listens, and every word it was, ‘Please tell me again.’ And I’d say, ‘Did you understand me?’ And he would say, ‘Yes, but please, tell me again.’ He wanted to be so sure.” UNQUOTE
This woman died a few days ago, with an unfulfilled wish to touch and hold the French Open trophy along with her pupil after he would win it one day. I believe Djokovic was given the news of her passing after an important match and broke down...
Of course Novak is an unbelievable competitor and the top talent in tennis today. It is so Significant for me how tennis becomes a paradigm for life itself, with all its challenges, and how with the help of a life coach we can achieve our goals relentlessly.
There is also a synonym for relentless. That is Nadal. And today again, I read Nirmal Shekar write about him in the Hindu:
Ah, paying attention! What a simple thing, you might think. But it is, in fact, a difficult practice, a seriously endangered process of cultural learning in an age when your senses are bombarded all the time by all kinds of distractions.
In the event, it was with an anguished sense of nostalgia that I remembered my teacher’s words from another age, on Friday.
Watching Rafael Nadal pay attention to the moment, especially when it happens to be a passage of play charged with meaning, is like watching a great scientist — perhaps on the verge of a Nobel-deserving discovery — pace his laboratory, solitary and single-minded.
Living in the now, being present all the time — these are not just quasi-philosophical clichés that have turned many life coaches, especially of Asian origin, into celebrity multi-millionaires in Silicon Valley and Hollywood. UNQUOTE
I wish the likes of Federer, Djokovic, and my favourite, Nadal well. They are the exemplars of what is excellence in every breath.
