The New York Times-20080129-Out of Hardship- a Hunger for Success

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Out of Hardship, a Hunger for Success

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It was the morning after at Melbourne Park. The players' lounge was empty of players. Men and machinery made loud noises as Rod Laver Arena began its transformation from the epicenter of tennis into a concert hall that will soon provide a stage for Hilary Duff and Iron Maiden.

But for a few hours more, Novak Djokovic was still at the scene of his greatest tennis triumph. After a night of minimal sleep and maximum satisfaction, Djokovic, the new Australian Open champion, sat at a massive, polished table in the offices of Tennis Australia and explained what he had in common with the other 20-year-old who won a Grand Slam singles title here this year: Maria Sharapova.

She is mentally very strong and is a very strong personality, Djokovic said. She doesn't allow anybody to fool with her, and she shows it every time on the court. She already has three Grand Slams. That proves everything. We are kind of on the same line in life. We've been through difficult things in our career, and we appreciate success much more, even though we are still young.

It has been possible of late for tennis observers to think less about hunger, one of the traditional engines of success. Roger Federer comes from a comfortable background in Switzerland, Rafael Nadal from an affluent family in Majorca. Justine Henin and the Williams sisters, who emerged from modest beginnings, have been multimillionaires for years.

But this year's first major tournament was a reminder that the desire born of economic hardship and cultural upheaval is a powerful motor for an athlete. For the first time at a Grand Slam, all of the women's semifinalists represented Eastern European nations, with Sharapova from Russia, Ana Ivanovic and Jelena Jankovic from Serbia and Daniela Hantuchova from Slovakia. Djokovic's victory also made him the first Serbian man to win a major singles title.

All four women and Djokovic had to leave their countries at early ages for extended periods for the sake of their tennis careers. Such sacrifices can clearly backfire. Sharapova's coach, Michael Joyce, said he sometimes joked with Sharapova's father, Yuri, that he had probably given false hope to many a tennis family. Yuri Sharapov left Russia for Florida with extremely limited means when his daughter was 7, and she eventually began training at the Bollettieri Tennis Academy.

There's millions of people like him that don't have daughters that have that talent, Joyce said. So in their case it worked out, but I always tease him all the time. I go to Bollettieri's, and I'm like, 'You've probably ruined so many people's lives.'

Djokovic, unable to find acceptable training conditions, left his parents and Serbia when he was 12 to board at the tennis academy run by the former Yugoslav star Niki Pilic in Munich.

This is a professional sport and some have a more difficult way, some have an easier way, Djokovic said. It just depends where you grow up. It's a matter of luck in the end, but that's life. But probably this hunger for the success which we all have and still have, you can see it in the girls like Sharapova and the Williams sisters and the girls and guys from Serbia.

You see how much they appreciate to be in that position and how much energy and emotions they put on the court. It's quite amazing. I know for myself I play with a lot of emotions, positive emotions, negative emotions. But this is how I feel and how I am. I'm a guy with a lot of temperament, because I know how much it means to me to be in that position.

Djokovic said his parents, who operated a restaurant in the Serbian mountains, had to work long hours to make his career possible.

You can't imagine what they've been through, he said. When you turn around now and see what we have been through as a family, we had to go through a difficult way, maybe a tougher way than somebody else. But it made us stronger.

What is surprising about Sharapova, already one of the world's wealthiest and most visible women at 20, is that she still projects that ferocious desire with a racket in hand.

The day she loses that is the day she should just hang them up, because that wins you lots of matches, Joyce said.

Sharapova said she was more interested in its effect on herself than her adversaries.

I don't care if they think it's intimidating or not or whatever, she said. I try to take care of my own business out there, and that's the most important thing: the belief you have on the court. I believe I'm capable of playing great tennis.

Djokovic said Monday that he hoped to bring positive energy to tennis and to Serbia, which spent most of the 1990s as a pariah as Yugoslavia gradually and violently split into independent nations.

Back in Serbia, his victory sparked large public celebrations in Belgrade. Most of the time for the last 20 years, they've been showing Serbia in a bad way, giving a bad picture, saying a lot of bad things about the country, he said. And I think these kinds of things lift them up and bring back the smiles on their faces. Even though it's just a success in the sport, I think it means a lot to them.

His popularity in Serbia has made him feel better about his decision not to pursue playing for Britain. Preliminary contacts were made with British tennis officials in 2006, but Djokovic, who was concerned about optimizing his training and the difficulty of attracting sponsorship as a Serb, chose not to pursue the move further.

That was the smartest option, he said. I had a lot of pressure in that time, and it was not a good period of the year to have so much pressure: pressure from media, pressure from everybody, even from the people back in my country thinking, Why should I go?

I just created more negative vibrations for no reason, but I never had professional conditions to succeed as a professional player in my country. So that's why there were options to go somewhere else and just try to help myself and my family so we can live better. But I think we made a great decision, and now I'm very happy that I decided this way.

[Illustration]PHOTO: Novak Djokovic, the first Serbian man to win a major singles title, greeting fans in Melbourne.(PHOTOGRAPH BY MARK BAKER/ASSOCIATED PRESS)