Inside Novak Djokovic’s Sweet and Steadfast 20-Year Love Story With Wife Jelena

As Novak Djokovic battles it out on Centre Court at Wimbledon this week, there’s one person whose reaction matters more to him than any trophy presenter’s—his wife, Jelena. The woman cheering him on from the players’ box has been by his side since they were teenagers, long before the Grand Slam titles, the millions of fans and the private jets. Back when, as Jelena herself once put it, they were just two kids who “barely got by.”

Their love story reads like something out of a romance novel, and honestly? It’s the kind of tale that reminds you why you still hold your husband’s hand at the grocery store after all these years.

Two kids and a tennis club

Novak and Jelena met in the early 2000s at a tennis club in Serbia. He was a scrappy young player with big dreams. She was a bright student who’d end up moving to Milan for college. They struck up a friendship first—playing tennis together, laughing together, building the kind of foundation that only comes from really knowing someone before romance enters the picture.

Novak recently opened up about those early days on Piers Morgan’s show, sharing a story so charmingly awkward it could only be true. He first heard Jelena’s name when a friend from his tennis club made a very public declaration after winning a match.

“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 for the regional tennis league and we won an important match, he took off his jersey and underneath the jersey he had the white shirt written, ‘Jelena, I love you. This is for you,'” Novak recalled, according to Us Weekly. “And we were like, ‘Oh my God, this is so lame. Why would you do that?’ And then who is this Jelena? And it was her.”

Novak has since put to rest any lingering rumors that he stole Jelena from that friend, saying they “still remain mates.” As for Jelena? He calls her “the only serious relationship” he’s ever had and “the true love of my life.”

When love meant plane tickets you couldn’t afford

If you’ve ever loved someone through lean years—the tight-budget years, the ramen-noodle years, the “we’ll figure it out” years—you’ll feel this next part right in your heart.

The couple started dating about four or five years after that first meeting, but life kept pulling them in different directions. Jelena was studying in Italy. Novak was chasing his tennis dream across Europe with barely a dollar to his name.

“Us getting together was like science fiction almost,” Jelena told Hello! magazine in June 2023, in a quote shared by Us Weekly. “I was a student barely getting by, and he was a very young tennis player who also had no money to spare on expensive trips. Airplanes were, at the time, something utterly out of our reach. We contrived and devised these plans how to meet, how to make our relationship work.”

Anyone who has weathered a long-distance stretch of marriage—the deployments, the traveling jobs, the college years apart—knows exactly what she means. Love isn’t the grand gesture. It’s the scheming and planning just to steal a weekend together.

Eventually, Jelena graduated and they moved in together in Monte Carlo. Novak’s tennis career was starting to soar. In 2008, at just 20 years old, he won his first Grand Slam at the Australian Open, disrupting the Federer-Nadal reign of dominance. Jelena was there in the crowd, of course. She’s almost always there.

A wedding, a baby and one perfect moment

After eight years of dating, Novak proposed in Monte Carlo in 2013. They tied the knot the following July in a private ceremony in Montenegro, just days after Novak won his second Wimbledon title. Jelena walked down the aisle pregnant with their first child.

“I was seeing him through tears and immediately started crying when I saw him,” Jelena told Hello! at the time. “I was just so happy and probably being pregnant makes it quite difficult to control the emotions. I am so blessed to have him in my life. I couldn’t ask for a better partner than him.”

Novak, for his part, described his bride as looking like “an angel.”

“I was trying to be present in that moment and memorize it. I was focused on her and her smile, and our baby. It really was a perfect moment,” he said.

Three months later, in October 2014, their son Stefan arrived. Their daughter Tara followed in September 2017. And through it all—the pregnancies, the tournaments, the moves—Jelena has been what Novak calls his rock.

‘She runs with the wolf’

At Wimbledon in June 2022, during an on-court interview after a win, Novak said something about his wife that made hearts melt around the world.

“She runs with the wolf,” he said, referring to himself by his nickname. “It can be very stressful to run with the wolf. I know that she doesn’t enjoy it at all times. … I love her, she’s my great support.”

Any wife who has weathered a spouse’s demanding career—the late nights, the pressure, the personality it takes to compete at the highest level—understands exactly what Jelena signed up for. And keeps signing up for.

The 10th anniversary poem that broke the internet

If you need proof that Novak Djokovic is as tender at home as he is fierce on the court, look no further than what he wrote to Jelena on their 10th wedding anniversary in June 2024. He posted a photo montage on Instagram with these words:

“Ten years of joy, ten years of dreams, ten years as islands, ten years as streams. Ten years as parents, ten years as one, ten years of dancing, ten years of fun. Ten years of yoga, ten years we stretch, ten years of dogs, ten years go fetch. Ten years of tennis, ten years of balls, ten years of triumph, ten years of falls. Ten years as teammates, ten years together, ten years Jelena, I love you forever. I love you.”

Read that again. The dogs. The yoga. The falls right alongside the triumph. That’s a man who’s actually been paying attention for a decade. That’s a marriage.

Twenty years and counting

Novak has racked up 24 Grand Slam titles and countless records. He met Lionel Messi in Miami. He’s traveled the world many times over. But when the cameras find him at Wimbledon this week, the person he’s playing for is the same girl who used to scheme up ways to see him when airplane tickets felt impossible.

In June 2023, after winning his 23rd Grand Slam at the French Open, Novak ran to the stands and kissed Jelena passionately in front of the world. She captioned a photo of the couple with their two kids simply: “23 💕🎉🪷.”

Because that’s what long-love looks like—not a fairy tale, but the real, imperfect, beautiful thing of showing up for each other, year after year, wolf and all.