When I saw the headlines this week about world number one men’s tennis player Novak Djokovic’s special 15-year long relationship with a tree in the Royal Botanical Gardens Victoria, my mouth hung open in shock.
Not because of how funny or strange this story was, no. But because it answered a mystery that had been hanging over me for 11 long years.
When I was an awkward 14-year-old, I was walking through those gardens with a friend when I randomly bumped into the sporting superstar hanging around an imposing (and now eerily familiar looking) Moreton Bay fig.
Djokovic was gracious enough to say yes to a photo with us, but immediately after, his manager said to move along because “he is training”.
What did he mean “training”? We were in the middle of the park? Djokovic didn’t even have a tennis racket? I shrugged it off, threw the world’s heaviest sepia filter on the photo, and posted it to Instagram (it got a full 16 likes, not bad for me at the time). But still, the enigma of it all lingered across the years.
And now, finally, I have the answer. This week, Djokovic told reporters at the Australian Open that “there’s one particular tree” in the botanical gardens that he’s “been having [a] special relationship with, so to say, in the last 15 years”.
The “training” was actually him meditating under the fig in order to “ground himself” for the upcoming Australian Open – which, by the way, he won that year. And while I wouldn’t necessarily recommend to everyone that they followthe tennis star’s health advice, it seemed this tree’s power was legitimate.
Naturally, I had to find it again.
Djokovic was careful not to reveal the tree’s exact location, but with my secret weapon (a foggy adolescent memory of my walking route), I was sure I’d be able to track it down. Not to publicly reveal its locale – I would never disrespect someone’s private tree friendship like that – but simply to snag a little of that magic for myself.
“Couldn’t be easier”, I declared, words I would come to rue two hours, 8,000 steps and 67 fig trees later.
Turns out there’s a Moreton Bay every hundred meters or so in this sprawling 38 hectare park, all almost identical, but yet none quite right.
Novak posting a photo with a tree I hooked up under when I was 16 in the Royal Botanic Gardens wasn't what I expected today 😭 "I got connected with that tree. I just liked it. I liked its roots and the trunks, and branches and everything." ☠️ pic.twitter.com/0omOdAAckt
— Liv 🌞 (@eurovisionmate) January 18, 2024
But just as I was about to give up – a miracle in the form of a clever colleague and Google.
They found the Royal Botanical Gardens’ database, which lists every single tree in the park, and meticulously cross referenced it against Google street view, sending me a map of three contenders. Was it a good use of journalistic resources? Probably not. But did it pay off? You betcha. Because two false positives and another 2km hike later … bam.
There she stood, in all her majestic grace. A secret, precious gem. I mean, yeah sure, it kind of just looked like a regular fig tree, but I swear an air of serenity rushed over me as soon as we laid eyes on it. (In retrospect this may have been heatstroke.)
The only issue was, just beyond the circumferences of its branches a man in a tux was straightening rows of white chairs. Clearly people could sense the star pulling power of this tree – a wedding was about to take place beneath it.
The guests hadn’t arrived yet, but under the thoroughly confused stare of the best man, I ran to the tree, stepped up on its colossal roots, wrapped my arms around the mighty trunk and laid my cheek against the cool bark.
Instantly I felt a tingling run up my face. It turns out that tingling was actually a family of ants, but wow, in those two blissful seconds before they climbed into my ear canal I experienced the pure serenity of the cosmos. Although the waiter who shooed me away shortly after didn’t seem to be feeling it.
The truth is, we will never know if this fig is ultimately responsible for Djokovic’s tennis success, but I for one am thankful that this man’s strange tree-loving ways gave me an excuse to spend the day walking around in nature, forced to properly appreciate these oft-overlooked Australian natives for the first time.
Also, it’s probably unrelated, but I now have this irresistible urge to grab a racket and hit the courts.
