Grand Slam debutant Radivojevic draws inspiration from Djokovic
With her career progression back on track following the challenges of 2020, Lola Radivojevic is ready for Roland Garros.
After six months of 2020 spent largely confined to her native Serbia in the midst of the COVID-19 lockdown, the 16-year-old is hoping to build on the promise of her pre-pandemic form and apply the lessons learned from some rather illustrious practice partners over the past 12 months.
Currently No. 59 in the ITF World Tennis Tour Junior girls’ ranks, Radivojevic arrives in Paris on the back of a semi-final run at J2 Oradea last month and three spots shy of her career-high junior ranking.
In March, she got her first taste of Grade A tournament play in Criciuma, Brazil, one of the six junior events offering the same points and quality of opposition as the four junior Grand Slams. She might have been there sooner following four creditable J1 performances at the start of 2020, including a quarter-final run in San Jose, Costa Rica. But then came COVID-19, and no ITF tournament entries from March until October.
Not that Radivojevic was off court for six months. Spearheaded by world No. 1 Novak Djokovic, the Serbian Tennis Federation held a series of domestic events to offer the nation’s players training opportunities and competition. She even got the chance to hit with Djokovic, her hero growing up, and stays in contact with the 18-time Grand Slam champion.
“He’s giving a lot of advice, both on the court and off the court,” Radivojevic said during the recent Billie Jean King Cup by BNP Paribas tie between Serbia and Canada. “His personality is so good. He’s been my idol from a young age, so it was a really big honour to be around him in this country.”
She may still have three seasons as a junior, but Radivojevic is already starting to make moves towards the professional ranks. While with Dusan Vemic’s Billie Jean King Cup squad she got the chance to spar in training with Serbia’s leading ladies, Nina Stojanovic, Olga Danilovic, Ivana Jorovic and Aleksandra Krunic, getting a sense of what it takes to reach the top of the women’s game.
“It’s incredible to be part of this team,” she said. “The girls were so good with me and I learnt a lot from them. They gave me a lot of good advice and I’m keeping it, so it’s really good. There are some things I’m not used to – as a junior I’m not facing a lot of shots like this, so it’s the little things that help me a lot.”
By then, she had made her ITF World Tennis Tour Women’s debut at back-to-back events in Tunisia, reaching the quarter-finals on her debut at W15 Monastir, and she recently got a taste of the WTA Tour as a wild card in Belgrade last month.
“It’s a big difference to junior tennis,” Radivojevic admits. “But I think I’m there – it’s not a big difference between me and the older girls. The biggest difference is the mentality. On the professional tour, they are calm every second, no matter what happens.”
That experience will stand her in good stead on her junior Grand Slam debut in Paris, where the right-hander faced Czech 17-year-old Barbora Palicova in the first round on Monday before she makes her doubles debut alongside fellow 16-year-old Anastasiia Gureva of Russia on Tuesday.
Most of all, she knows she must play her game, her way – something she appreciates even more as the quality of her opponents and practice partners continues to rise.
“I’m completely my own person as a player. I have my strengths, my own personality on court – I’m pretty aggressive, I serve well, and I love to step into the court and get up to the net.”