Dear Novak,
I have started a breeding colony of super talented hot Serbians and I need your DNA- just kidding!
Seriously, you are the number one tennis player in the world; and you are number one in my eyes.
In Miami you played a tough game against Marcos Bahgdatis. You both played magnificently and it was not an easy win. So personally I don’t think cheering your own victory is at all arrogant, as some critics purport. When you had Bahgdatis down and rolling around he reminded me of a barely alive iguana, when the tail is still swinging around but the spinal cord is undoubtedly crushed. For Bahgdatis, just like roadkill, death was collateral damage, not murder.
With the eyes of the world on you, after defeating the Cypriot, you signed the lens of a camera thrust in your face. Just like your hero Pete Sampras, you are mentally strong.
You are a winner and you are marvelous to watch. You are a natural ambassador for Serbs, a people who could use some light shone their way. After the war sponsors weren’t interested in a young Serb. Attitudes and times change, as inexorably as the globe rotates, and in large part due to Serbs like you.
I am born in New York City, and thus American but I too am a Serb, at least half. What does it mean to be a Serb? I question nature versus nurture in my quest to better understand. Perhaps these days to be a Serb is to be misunderstood, to be prejudged. Like most Americans I’m constantly on the hunt trying to figure myself out. New studies suggest nature has the greater influence over nurture, which means it’s in the genes, and you need to know where you come from to discover who you are.
According to William Wright’s superb book Born That Way (Knopf), sense of humor and competitiveness are inherent, and beyond mere family there exist shared cultural traits. Djokovic loves to do funny impressions, I too am a goofball. He loves to throw rackets, so do I, as did my sister Catherine all throughout our childhood. Privileged to be introduced to the beguiling game of tennis when we were teenagers, we rebelled; stubbornness is also, allegedly, a Serbian characteristic. Many a graphite racket was reshaped, like tree tops in the wind, by hurling it at the fence surrounding the court, where sometimes it stuck. After countless hours logged in front of a ball machine I discovered I was not much enthralled with working up a sweat and retreated indoors to watch televised matches and sip iced lemonade and write stories.
Well done Novak, I wish you all the best. After conquering tennis if you want to be a footballer, or a singer or an actor I will follow your journey with keen interest.
Your number one fan,
Kristina Oksenberg aka Christina Oxenberg
Ps: shout out to Princess Jelisaveta Karageorgevic, and Ana Ivanovic, and all good Serbs.