Jelena Djokovic has cried out on criticism faced after Novak loss in....

Novak Djokovic’s biggest fan is his wife, Jelena Djokovic.

“Whether I’m winning or losing, she’s always there. Family’s always there. When I go back home, I’m not a tennis player anymore. I’m a father and a husband,” he said years ago. “That’s a kind of balance that I think allows me to play this well. Ever since I got married and became a father, I haven’t lost many matches, I won many tournaments. I suggest that to every player, ‘Get married, have kids, let’s enjoy this.'”

Jelena was born in 1986 to parents Miomir and Vera Ristic. She has an older sister, Marija, who she calls her best friend on her blog. Her grandparents are from Ljig, Serbia. “When I was little, I used to spend a lot of time at my grandparents at a village named Ljig,” she shared on Instagram. “My favourite memories are from there. When my grandma would bake doughnuts and bring them to us at the public swimming pool where we used to spend our days. We were so hungry that we would eat whole box in a second and ask for more!”

When she was 18, she went to college in Italy at Bocconi University in Milan. There, she studied luxury brand management.

The two attended the same Serbian high school that had a sports academy. They started dating in the early 2000s. Their first date, Jelena recalls, was at a sports bar in Monte Carlo and super awkward.

“Us getting together was like science fiction almost. 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,” she said. “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.”

When she graduated, they moved in together in Monte Carlo, where she attended the International University of Monaco for her master’s degree.