Novak Djokovic’s Wife ‘Wouldn’t Be Happy’ If He Kept Chasing This Tennis Record
He’s considered one of the greatest tennis players of all time, with a record 71 Big Titles: 24 majors, a record 40 Masters, and a record seven ATP Finals. But apparently, Novak Djokovic’s wife Jelena wouldn’t be happy if he kept chasing one particular sporting record held by his rival.
Djokovic was born on May 22, 1987, in Belgrade, Serbia. He began his professional tennis career in 2003 at age 16 but had been playing the sport since the age of four. Just two years later, he made his debut at the Australian Open, though he was defeated in round one. In 2007, he earned his first Masters titles, and a year later, he’d take home the Australian Open singles title, which was the first of many Grand Slam victories since. “It’s not a gift,” he told 60 Minutes in December 2023. “It’s something that comes with work.”
It almost fell apart years ago, though, way back in 2018 when he was defeated by Benoit Paire at the 2018 Miami Masters. “After that match, he wanted to quit,” Novak Djokovic’s wife, Jelena, said during a TikTok discussion with American journalist Graham Bensinger in December 2023.
“He gathered all the members of his team and told them: You know what: I’m done, I’m quitting. We cried and told him that he couldn’t do it, that it wasn’t the right time. He didn’t want to play tennis, and he didn’t even want to see a ball pass in front of him.” Here’s what we know about Novak Djokovic’s wife, Jelena, and how crucial she’s been to his continued success.
Novak Djokovic’s wife, Jelena (2014 – present)
Novak Djokovic and Jelena (née Ristic) met in high school. They first got together while attending and playing tennis at school and dated for eight years before getting engaged in 2013 in Monte Carlo, where Novak was living at the time.
“Us getting together was like science fiction almost. I was a student barely getting by, and he was a very young tennis player who also had no money to spare on expensive trips,” she once told Hello!. “Airplanes were, at the time, something utterly out of our reach. We contrived and devised these plans how to meet, how to make our relationship work.”
But she was so busy with office work. “At a certain point, Novak told me, ‘Darling, we cannot go on like this,’ ” she said, and she left her job at the oil company to act as the National Director of the couple’s charity organization, the Novak Djokovic Foundation.
After Jelena graduated from university, the two moved in together in Monte Carlo, where she got a temporary job at an oil company. In 2014, they were married at the Aman Sveti Stefan Resort in Montenegro, a little less than a week after Novak won his second Wimbledon championship.
The couple welcomed their first child, son Stefan on October 22, 2014. Jelena gave birth to their daughter, Tara, in September 2017. “Very happy and proud to welcome our little girl Tara to our home,” he wrote in a post to Instagram. “Jelena and I have been hand in hand on their journey and as a man, I have to send my love and admiration to every single women out there for going through so much pain and effort to create life, to bring life and raise a human being … what a blessing to have an opportunity to be a parent!”
He’s always been very outspoken about how much she does to keep the family together while he chases his tennis career. “Being absent from the children is not something that makes me very happy. It’s a balancing act between me and my wife and the close people in my life,” he said in January 2023, during the Australian Open. “So her being there for our children and everything, it allows me to be able to do what I love and still make some strides, significant strides, in this sport.”
With 24 Grand Slam titles and more than 400 weeks as the world No 1 among his lift of achievements, he ruled out the idea of playing until he was 50. “I don’t know, I’m sure my wife wouldn’t be very happy. I am very satisfied with everything I have achieved,” he told Marca, explaining why he didn’t feel it necessary to chase Rafael Nadal‘s record of 14 French Open titles. “I do not have to look at Rafa’s record in Paris. I have many that I’m proud of and that are part of history. If I were to retire right now, I could only be happy and proud of what I’ve done.”
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