"Jelena dated one tennis player that is a friend" - Novak Djokovic gets honest about how his relationship with the 'love of his life' began

Novak Djokovic recently revisited the beginning of his love affair with his wife Jelena. According to the Serb, Jelena used to be in a romantic relationship with one of his tennis-playing friends before he asked her out.

The former No. 1 and 24-time Major champion sat down with Piers Morgan for an interview. Here, he playfully recalled a funny story involving his friend who had planned on professing his love for Jelena via a written message on a shirt.

"She used to play tennis but we never met through tennis while she was playing it, but she dated one tennis player that is a friend of mine from early days. It was funny, because the first time I heard about her was when that friend, who was in the same tennis club as me, played a match in the regional tennis league and we won, an important match," the Serb said. "He took out his jersey and underneath the jersey he had a white shirt written, ‘Jelena, I love you. This is for you’. And we were like, ‘Oh my god that’s so lame, why would you do that?’ And then, ‘Who is this Jelena?’ And it was her," he added.

The 38-year-old, currently ranked No. 4 in men's singles tennis, went on to cast his mind back to when he began dating Jelena following his and her respective moves from their native Serbia to Monte Carlo and Italy.

"And then she showed up afterwards and so forth, and then we’ve known each other through obviously common friends for about four, five years. And actually, one of my best friends, has been her friend and they went to school together. So we were in kind of a similar, same company, and then we started dating when I went to live in Monte Carlo. She went to study in Italy and then we started dating," Djokovic continued.

Novak Djokovic also revealed that his relationship with wife Jelena is the only serious love affair he has been involved in. The Serb though, admitted that he had shared brief romantic relationships with other women before.

"So she is basically the only serious, like long serious relationship I’ve ever had. I had obviously some few months relationships here and there. She’s truly the love of my life," he concluded.

Novak Djokovic married Jelena in 2014; happily-married Serbian couple eventually became parents to son Stefan and daughter Tara

Novak Djokovic (right) with wife Jelena (left) at the 2024 Laureus World Sport Awards Madrid (Source: Getty)

On the back of their engagement in September 2013, Novak Djokovic got married to Jelena on Thursday, July 10, 2014. In October the same year, the couple became parents for the first time as they welcomed son Stefan to the world. Almost three years later, daughter Tara was born. Jelena, Stefan and Tara have often been spotted in the stands rooting for Djokovic spanning numerous tournaments.

In addition to being the Serb's wife, Jelena also leads the Novak Djokovic Foundation, which primarily works for helping underprivileged children in Serbia. She also played a pivotal role in encouraging her husband to prolong his tennis career. In 2018, following an early exit from the Miami Open, Djokovic contemplated retirement. Recalling the incident in an interview two years later with Graham Bensinger, Jelena said:

"He had just lost in Miami, a horrible defeat... He got us all together and said, 'It’s over. Eduardo (Artali, his former agent), you can talk to my sponsors. I want to be clear with them. I don’t know if I’m going to stop for six days, a year, or forever. I'm like, "But you can't quit!" And we are crying, and we're like, "What are you doing? This is not the time!"

On the tennis front, Djokovic won his 101st career singles title recently at the Hellenic Championship in Athens, Greece, following which he declared the end of his competitive tennis outings in 2025 by withdrawing from the year-end ATP Finals.

Edited by Sudipto Pati