{"id":67505,"date":"2026-08-20T08:58:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-20T08:58:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/67505\/"},"modified":"2026-08-20T08:58:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T08:58:10","slug":"novak-djokovic-admits-leaving-wife-and-kids-at-home-for-work-is-very-painful","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/67505\/","title":{"rendered":"Novak Djokovic Admits Leaving Wife and Kids at Home for Work Is ‘Very Painful’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tennis star Novak Djokovic<\/a> has spent decades traveling the world for his career\u2014but the 24-time Grand Slam champion<\/a> has now admitted that leaving his home, his wife, and his children remains just as “painful” as it was at the very beginning.<\/p>\n

Novak, 39, has had a busy few months, competing at Wimbledon<\/a>, the French Open, the Italian Open, and\u2014most recently\u2014the Cincinnati Masters. He is now hard at work promoting a new Prime Video documentary, “Novak Djokovic: The Wolf in Winter,” which premiers on Aug. 20.<\/p>\n

Through it all, the tennis pro told People magazine<\/a> in a new interview, his wife, Jelena Djokovic, has been a calming, supportive presence in his life, ensuring that their home life and children\u2014son Stefan, 12 and daughter Tara, 8\u2014are taken care of, so he can continue chasing his next Grand Slam win.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was keeping the household together, nurturing our children, and helping them also overcome\u2014as they\u2019ve grown older\u2014the absence of their father, which is something that hurts me the most, even these days,\u201d he shared.<\/p>\n

Novak, who recently relocated from Serbia to Athens, Greece, added that his absence from the family home remains incredibly “painful.” However, it has helped him to ensure he is as “present” as possible, when he is lucky enough to spend time with his wife and kids.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you leave your kids and your wife, I think it\u2019s not a clich\u00e9 [to say] it\u2019s actually very painful,\u201d he said. \u201cBut you do your work, and you try to do the best that you can. When you come back home, you try to be as present as you possibly can.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tennis star Novak Djokovic has spent decades traveling the world for his career\u2014but the 24-time Grand Slam champion has now admitted that leaving his home, his wife, and his children remains just as “painful” as it was at the very beginning.Kevin C. Cox\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

It helps that Novak and Jelena, 40, have a solid foundation.<\/p>\n

Meeting in Serbia as teenagers, they reconnected once his career began to take off, while he was training in Monte Carlo and Jelena was studying abroad in Italy.<\/p>\n

The duo married in 2014, later welcoming their little ones to the mix.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s been my girlfriend, fianc\u00e9e, and my wife for more than 20 years,\u201d Novak shared. His relationship with Jelena is the \u201conly serious\u201d romance he\u2019s ever had.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m eternally grateful for her love, her support, the relationship that has evolved over the years,\u201d he continued. \u201cAs with any other relationship, it takes sacrifice. It takes a lot of compromise as well, and to grow together.\u201d<\/p>\n

The couple have certainly grown an impressive life with each other over the past two decades\u2014building an awe-inspiring portfolio of homes across the globe, including a longtime dwelling in Serbia, which Novak has previously revealed he hopes to retire to one day.<\/p>\n

However, having moved his family to Greece, the athlete, who bought the Belgrade dwelling for $1.09 million in 2016, made the decision to list the three-bedroom, three-bathroom property for rent, with an eye-watering ask of $17,542 a night. <\/p>\n

For that princely sum, guests can take advantage of the private location on the shores of Pavlovac Lake, which is in close proximity to Novak Cafe and Restaurant\u2014the eatery Novak’s parents, Srdjan and Dijana, established in his honor.<\/p>\n

The Grand Slam champion also has homes in New York City and Marbella, Spain.Clive Brunskill\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Of course, the abode features a tennis court. For those who aren\u2019t as skilled with a racket, there\u2019s still plenty to do. The Belgrade estate has a large wine cellar, private gym, relaxing sauna, resort-style pool, and gaming room furnished with pingpong and pool tables.<\/p>\n

In addition to that dwelling and their home in Greece, the tennis legend holds the keys to an $8.3 million abode in Marbella, Spain, and two homes in New York City<\/a>, which he spent more than $10 million on in 2017.<\/p>\n

He also purchased a stunning Miami apartment for $5.77 million in 2017. But he sold that property for $6 million just four years later.<\/p>\n

In addition to providing strong support at home, Jelena, Stefan, and Tara sometimes travel to support Novak.<\/p>\n

Noting that his son has an interest in tennis, Novak opened up about his approach to balancing fatherhood with his career. While he\u2019d “absolutely” support Stefan if he decided to pursue sports professionally, it\u2019s ultimately the 12-year-old\u2019s prerogative.<\/p>\n

\u201cI primarily want him to be happy, to be healthy. I want to be his father. It\u2019s not easy, obviously, being who I am in the tennis world. … There\u2019s always a curiosity whether he\u2019s going to be pursuing the same journey, but it\u2019s not the same journey. It\u2019s his journey.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though Novak already holds the keys to the perfect retirement retreat, there\u2019s no telling just when he\u2019ll slow down. Previously referring to the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles as a \u201cguiding star\u201d for the next phase of his life, it sounds like there at least two years of competition ahead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tennis star Novak Djokovic has spent decades traveling the world for his career\u2014but the 24-time Grand Slam champion…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":67506,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12704],"tags":[9659,7142,84,4893,2773,4955,13684,3127,41729,41730,1426,1216],"class_list":["post-67505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-louis-vuitton","tag-celebrity-homes","tag-family","tag-florida","tag-greece","tag-louis-vuitton","tag-lvmh","tag-miami-fl","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-ny","tag-professional-athlete-homes","tag-tennis","tag-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67505\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}