1. I believe Wog Boy mentioned something like this after the Paris win. On Boris. I concur. That is, the last 2 years have been very good for Boris as well as Nole. If you look at pictures of Boris now, you see a thinner, younger looking guy full of energy and passion. He looked like crap when he joined Team Nole.
He was welcomed in, a German in the midst of Slavs, and found himself slowly bonding with the Serb professionally and personally. Journalist liquid lunches gave way to workouts, a diet regimen that still had beer, spaetzle, and sauerbraten but less than before. He got the surgery to help his moblity return, and got even better, healthwise.
And importantly for Boris, his advice has led to Djokovic tapping a new offense and finding out he has the talent to improve his net play, half court volleys, a little more on an already (pre-Boris) improving serve, a crisper forehand. Useful strategies for Wimbledon. How aggression can be deployed at the right time to make his opponent doubtful and generate more UFE’s. Which Nole quite openly gives Boris credit for. Becker’s large ego is basking in the fruits of success. He is happier.
This isn’t a celebrity coach situation. It is Becker being able to enhance Djokovics play in the areas Nole needed enhancement the most.

2. In all that, Novak still ensures that due credit goes to his physio, parents, Marian, agents, the encouragement and inspiration of his wife, his friends and brothers all matter a lot.
And the influential coaches besides Marian and Boris going back to his preteens. How certain players over the years positively impact on him.

3. And in this brilliant year, Djokovic returns with a familiar theme in his media meetings. How his life away from the courts has also gotten better, happier and it all fits in with his “job”. Djokovic is showing the value of how a balanced life with fun and activities other than his sport leads to more success in that sport than a monomaniacal fixation on just tennis, with all other things a distant second.

November 9th, 2015 at 1:40 pm

CF1,
What I like about Nole is his cosmopolitan aproach when he is choosing the member of his team, as much as he is patriotic (and he is) that is not part of his criteria when choosing team members, but rather who is the best for the job regardless of nationality. In his team there is only one Serb, Miljan Amanovic, the others are Slovakian, Austrian, German and that lady whose name is Elena but I don’t know her nationality, his PR manager was Rafa’s one for quite a while until Nole decided to take that bold dude who is Italian. Niki Pilic, who polished Nole after Jelena Gencic handed him over to him is Croatian. He choses his friends same way and still is a friend with ones he grew up in Belgrade and never misses the chance to hang out with them when he is in Belgrade.

November 9th, 2015 at 3:50 pm

Elena is Italian as well.

November 10th, 2015 at 3:36 am

Thanks danica,
I thought she might be Italian but wasn’t sure. He also appointed as global CEO of his foundation nobody else but Alberto Lidji:

http://novakdjokovicfoundation.org/about-us/management-team/

November 10th, 2015 at 4:43 am

Nikola Pilić, although of Croatian origin, was born in Yugoslavia, and of course living and working in Germany, I doubt he got “infected” with the Croatian nationalistic bug of the ’90s. Therefore I’d venture to say that he’s felt about Đoković more as his countryman rather than a kid from a different country.

As for Becker, he was best man to Slobodan-Boba Živojinović at his wedding in the ’80s, so it’s not like he’s never dealt with Slavs before, particularily the Serbs. He’s been BFFs with Živojinović, he had visited him in Belgrade countless times, apart from the wedding, even played an exibition match with him here back in the day when he (Becker) was No1 player, so Nole is not his first Serbian tennis connection. Of course, Živojinović played for Yugoslavia back in the 80s, still Becker has history with Belgrade and Serbia (formerly in Yugoslavia).

November 11th, 2015 at 8:35 pm

@kriket,

I know that Boba’s best man was Ion Tiriac, but I am not sure of Boris, though I know Boba and Boris were best mates with countless nights they spent on the loose in the night clubs.

November 11th, 2015 at 9:06 pm

kriket,

Here is the official video of “the wedding of the decade” as Boba and Brena wedding was nicknamed, you can see Ion Tiriac at 1:30 who flew in Belgrade just to be best man and flew out same afternoon, you can see him at 5:50 again talking to bride (Brena) but Boris Becker is nowhere to be seen, I presume he couldn’t make it, otherwise he would be certanly in this offical video:

http://youtu.be/EWwWjjKYu14

November 11th, 2015 at 10:07 pm

Yeah, I might be wrong about the best man at the wedding. I claimed that because I remember the Mercedes that Becker sent as a wedding gift to them. I did not see him actually attending the ceremony, but I presumed because I know they were great if not best friends, and that the best man gives the best gift – a brand new Mercedes-Benz :)

It might be that he was otherwise engaged being World No1 at the time. But I remember well the exhibition match they played on an improvised tennis court on the Red Star football stadium, because at the time Belgrade did not have any tennis courts with stands for the audience. So they had to improvise one at the track of the track & field stadium, in order to have room for the audience. I remember, when Becker became World No1, Boba Živojinović promised in a TV interview that he would bring him to Belgrade to play tennis with him. And he made good on that promise. The match itself wasn’t really an epic. It was serve & volley all the way, so it got boring soon. Nevertheless it was World No1 playing an exho with our domestic tennis hero – Živojinović in Belgrade. It was no small feat at the time :)

November 11th, 2015 at 10:38 pm

Mercedes-Benz, 25 years ago, was quite a present:)

November 11th, 2015 at 10:52 pm

I believe that exho match was played in 1987. I still have the ticket that was given to me by a friend who would later play for Yugoslavia in Davis Cup. It was on a Red Star stadium and I was sitting in the first row :). The result 7:6, 7:6 for Boba but I think we all knew that Becker let him win.

November 11th, 2015 at 11:42 pm