Like any outdoor market that runs through an urban downtown, there is inevitably a T-shirt vendor. And at the entrance to Kalemegdan Park, at the base of a pedestrian promenade in Belgrade, the T-shirt guy offers two main choices. One is a shirt adorned with an image of Novak Djokovic, face contorted in intensity, as he is, no doubt, about to win one tennis title or another. The other option features Nikola … no, not Jokić, but Tesla, the Serbian American father of modern electricity, best known for pioneering alternating current in the late 1800s.
Such is the status conferred on Djokovic in his homeland.
Yet at least in the tennis sector, Djokovic isn’t just a generational figure; he’s a transformational one, who, not unlike Tesla—also tall, lanky and sometimes overshadowed by a rival—is a technician and a futurist, constantly pushing the parameters of possibility. In his 36th year, Djokovic turned in perhaps the most successful season of his career. Which is saying something.
