US Open 2021: Inside the kooky world of Novak Djokovic

Love or hate him, but Novak Djokovic is just a few wins away from eclipsing Roger, Rafa and Rod Laver as the best ever.

Novak Djokovic is just three wins away from tennis immortality Picture: Getty Images

Novak Djokovic is an anti-vaxxer. One of those! He believes toxic food and polluted water can be cleansed by the power of gratitude.

He’s ideologically opposed to surgery and says he cried for five days when he had to go under the surgeon’s knife to save his career.

He diagnosed himself as gluten intolerant by holding a piece of bread to his stomach and feeling a bit crook in the guts.

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Now the kookiest and best tennis player in the world has ditched the madness and mayhem of Manhattan to bask in the serenity of an exclusive $50 million private residence in New Jersey that has a replica US Open court and allows him to do what he likes to do in times of stress.

Talk to the trees. It’s unclear whether they have started booing him yet.

Djokovic may not be your favourite athlete on Earth. He may not be in your top 500.

Tennis may not be your favourite sport and you may not think Djokovic’s style is particularly pleasing to the eye. But his matches from now on at Flushing Meadows will make for compelling viewing for the psychological battle he’s attempting to win.

Novak Djokovic in action on centre court at the US Open. Picture: Getty Images

He’s an Ice Man at the best of times but a Hothead at the worst, sometimes within a matter of points, and he’s trying desperately to get his head around being so close to creating history as the first winner of the calendar-year grand slam since Australia’s Rod Laver in 1969.

He’s three matches from the most prestigious feat in the sport. Just nine sets from one of the greatest accomplishments in world sport.

In the background is the fact a 21st major title will take him past Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal as the most successful male player in history.

Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal in 2019. Picture: Getty Images

The mental strain caused by the enormity of the stakes is his most dangerous opponent and so he’s reverted to one of the routines he always adopts at the Australian Open.

Every year in Melbourne, he goes to the Botanical Gardens to chat away to his favourite tree. When he wins the tournament, he goes back to his tree and climbs it. (Get a room).

“I love the Botanical Gardens and I love nature and I love to spend time daily there if I can,” Djokovic says of his Melbourne tree.

“I have a friend there, a Brazilian fig tree, that I like to climb and I like to connect with so that’s probably my favourite thing to do. Maybe that’s not as fun as you would expect but I’m not big into parties. Hopefully when I win … you will see me climbing a tree.”

Novak Djokovic in Melbourne's Royal Botanic Gardens Picture: AAP

Djokovic plays powerhouse Italian Matteo Berrettini in the US Open quarter-finals at about 11am Thursday morning (AEDT). Rather than travelling to Queens from Manhattan, where 99 per cent of the players stay, he will be picked up by his personal driver in a tournament-organised courtesy car at the New Jersey property he’s renting. It’s a spectacular $50 million, 48-acre estate owned by Gordon A. Uehling III, a cashed-up tennis nerd and analyst who’s usually in Djokovic’s courtside entourage.

The property has a hyperbaric chamber, a grass court, a clay court, a hard court that is exactly the same as the one inside Arthur Ashe Stadium – and most importantly, a private park that has any number of trees vying for Djokovic’s affection.

“I am based outside New York,” he said this week. “During the tournament I am staying on my friend’s estate in New Jersey. Precisely because of all the noise and clamour typical for New York.

“It is one of the most exciting and most fun cities in the world, that is why I stayed in the city for four or five nights before the tournament. Sometimes I take a walk in Central Park but I am mainly outside New York during the tournament, which allows me to relax in a proper way.

“As the US Open got closer, I moved to New Jersey, where I can be connected to nature. There, I have my peace, my shelter in a way, which allows me to recharge my batteries and to keep what is most important for me to perform, my energy – physical, mental and emotional.”

Photos of Uehling’s property show that it is not a bad little joint. It has an indoor court hooked up to digital technology that can monitor ever stroke and movement a player makes.

Djokovic doesn’t have to go to Flushing Meadows to train. He can do it all out in New Jersey with the mate he calls “Super G,” who’s made a fortune from investing in the PlaySight Interactive digital sports analysis system used by the NBA and 25 sports organisations from 20 countries.

“Super G” tried to turn pro himself in the early 2000s, reaching a career-high ranking 924 places below where Djokovic now sits.

The lovey-dovey, we-are-all-connected-to-Mother-Earth side of Djokovic is in complete contrast to the ruthless machine-like mentality he takes into matches.

All he has ever wanted to do is take down Federer and Nadal. We laughed him out of the room when he first suggested it was possible. They were thought to be untouchable but credit where it’s due. Djokovic has shoved them aside. It’s extraordinary.

America’s former world No. 1 Andy Roddick tweeted about Djokovic this week. He said first, Djokovic takes out your legs. And then he takes your soul. Djokovic replied: “Naw, thanks Andy. I’ll take that as a compliment, but only the first part. The second part, I don’t take anyone’s soul. Everyone has their soul. We are all beautiful souls, so I appreciate everyone – but I will take your legs out, that’s for sure.”