By Tommaso Villa
Novak Djokovic is clearly enjoying doing live streams for his fans. A few days after his wide-ranging chat with Andy Murray, the world number one had a conversation with Fabio Fognini. The chat happened mostly in Italian (with a few questions taken in English), as Djokovic considers Italy his second home – he made the headlines for the money he quietly donated to hospitals in Bergamo, as well as for his controversial stance on Covid-19 vaccination, which wasn’t mentioned in the conversation.
After a few customary jokes about the state of their respective haircuts (Fognini said he was thinking about shaving his head while letting his beard grow, but refrained from doing so because he would then look like his father), the two really got into it: both are currently in two of the most heavily-hit countries of this pandemic (Djokovic is staying at his brother’s place in Marbella, Spain, while Fognini is at his own place in Arma di Taggia, close to the Italian-French border), and therefore are deeply appreciative of their privileged position while understanding the grievousness of the situation.
Particularly, Fognini praised what Djokovic and other members of the Players Council are doing to set up the Player Relief Fund, on which the Serbian commented: “It will be for players with a ranking between 250 and 700, I know I’m privileged so I’m trying to use my status to help those who are struggling in our sport. The ATP has created the Player Relief Fund, which is going to accept donations from the players, and to which the ATP will contribute some money itself, as will do the ITF and the four Slams. These seven entities have already given several millions [Editor’s note: he didn’t want to state the exact amount before the information is officially released], while the players will be able to contribute as much as they want.”
“Many people have told me that they are contemplating retirement, because they can’t afford to keep playing, so it’s up to the top players to expand the base and to make sure that players don’t lose money even if they don’t reach the upper echelon of the game.”
Specifically, Nole asked his peer how he’s dealing with the lack of competitiveness, and Fognini, who last played in the Davis Cup last month (but will participate in Patrick Mouratoglou’s Ultimate Tennis Showdown starting on May 16), answered: “I was very uncomfortable the first 10 days, I was even losing my hair due to the stress of the situation, but now I’m used to it.”
Fognini said he’s cooking (mostly pasta with tuna) and helping around the house, while enjoying the company of his wife, Slam champion Flavia Pennetta (who made an impromptu appearance on her way to play with her older child, Federico), and of his two children, the older of which, Federico, is already beginning to play – apparently he already has four racquets of his own, and talent surely runs in his veins!
Djokovic agreed with Fognini’s initial sentiment: “I was very anxious at first too, finding it very hard to accept the moment, but that a few conversations with his wife I calmed down.” As a matter of fact, aside from their financial stability, both players are managing to not miss competition due to the presence of their respective families – Fognini joked that Djokovic usually plays so deep into tournaments that it must be indeed very infrequent for him to see his family.
Mental strength then took over a big chunk of the chat. The Italian asked Djokovic whether he has some exercises to deal with the situation from a spiritual side, knowing his colleague to be very involved with meditation. The 17-time Slam champion answered: “Breathing exercises are a lot more useful than people think. A proper breathing rhythm is a key to understanding and improving our own mental, physical and emotional statuses.” He also added: “I do it when I need serenity or after I wakes up, in order to have more dynamic energy. Meditation isn’t a religious thing, it’s rather something personal that I do to stay healthy, especially given the sensory and informational overload we experience in the contemporary world. I’ve been doing it for a decade, and it’s been useful both on and off-court.”
Surprisingly enough, given his on-court persona, Fognini said that he’s been practicing meditation as well, even though he finds it to be effective for him only for his off-court life, usually doing it before sleep. He also added that he’s not sure whether it works, but that it still makes him feel well. Interestingly, he said that he feels like there still is a social taboo around going to see a psychologist, a figure that he rightly sees as still underrated in sports.
Djokovic thoroughly agreed on this point, and said that it took him a long time to acknowledge his “turbulent” on-court nature as well, something that he managed to control after a few years by accepting his fallibility and by recognising that how a mistake is corrected is more important than making the mistake in itself. He further chimed in on the importance of routines, especially when they help you find a focused and yet serene state of mind, as the brain needs to get used to positive patterns.
However, many other subjects were touched during the one-hour reunion: Djokovic facetiously claimed that he’d like to retire at 50, an age that he optimistically deemed as “a quarter of my life,” before saying that he’s simply not thinking about stopping yet, and they both mentioned the Rome and Monte-Carlo crowds among the best they have played for, although the Serbian also mentioned Melbourne’s and China’s fans as being particularly good to him, whereas the Italian mentioned Naples (where he trashed Andy Murray in the Davis Cup) as another good spot.
Speaking of crowds, Fognini expressed ambivalent sentiments towards playing behind closed doors, especially at big events such as the Slams, where the atmosphere might be anti-climactic, but recognised that it might be inevitable, as even one sick person in the stands might turn a tournament into a bacteriologic bomb – generally, they both acknowledged how hard it will be for tournament directors to fill the draws when most countries will lift the lockdown at different times, with Djokovic predicting a prevalence of regional tournaments over the traditional format of the game.
Finally, the two exchanged ideas on a couple more subjects. Firstly, Djokovic was asked what he’d like to change in tennis, to which he replied: “I’m always in favour of innovation, and I think that the tennis industry needs to keep evolving. One thing I’d like to work on is lowering the age of the fan-base, since I’m told that in the US and in Europe it’s usually above 60 years old. As for rules, I like the experimentation done during the NextGen Finals in Milan, and I think that on-court coaching should be implemented, but without letting the crowd hear what is being said, because it would certainly reach the ears of the opponent’s team.” Fognini agreed on the latter proposal, and both admitted that coaching happens anyway, so it’s just a matter of how tolerant umpires are.
Secondly, they asked each other who they would like to coach among current players. Djokovic said that he would like to work with Fognini himself, because he thinks he’s one of the most talented players he’s ever seen, but also with Felix Auger-Aliassime, whom he describes as “a great guy, with great ethics and very talented,” and Stefanos Tsitsipas. On the other hand, Fognini mentioned Nick Kyrgios (depending on the Aussie’s mental well-being) and Denis Shapovalov.
These chats certainly don’t make up for what’s happening, nor for the lack of play, but it’s certainly very interesting to hear what the players have to say about the game that fills most of their lives, especially when the personalities involved are as unique as those of these two players are, and so it could be interesting to hear more of this in the future, perhaps even after play resumes.
