The Serbian Tennis Federation has no courts, no training facilities. So how did the country, with less than 10 million people and no strong tennis tradition, suddenly begin producing world-class players? Dušan Orlandić, the Federation's general manager, told me, "It's like we had a garage for a Yugo, which was the world's worst car, and then one day we get up and find parked in there a Ferrari, a Lamborghini, and a Formula One car." Janko Tipsarević, another young pro from Belgrade, reckons it may have been something in the depleted uranium of all those NATO bombs.

Djoković says he started playing tennis only because, when he was four years old, somebody built three courts across the road from his family's pizzeria in a ski village. Nobody else in his family played, but he would carry beers from the restaurant to the builders, and when the courts were finished they let him knock a ball around. "It was really like a destiny," he says. Jelena Gencić, the godmother of Yugoslav tennis, who is now in her seventies, took him on as a student. She found him unusually serious, and remembers him declaring, at the age of six or seven, on a local children's TV program, his determination to become the top tennis player in the world. (So that schtick started early.) When, at the age of 12, he ran out of useful competition in wartime Serbia, Gencić sent him to a top-flight tennis academy in Munich, where he flourished. Djoković's parents shared a cramped flat with three sons and borrowed privately to pay for more stints in Germany.

These days, with the winnings from their big gamble rolling in — Novak earned almost $4 million last year in prize money — those friends who helped the family have been repaid with interest. According to Gencić, though, the Djokovićes "can no longer answer their phones. So many people asking for money." They've created a charity focused on helping Serbian children in Kosovo, and while I was in town they held a giant fund-raiser for the children's wing of a hospital there, hiring Belgrade Arena, one of the largest indoor venues in Europe, for a mixed-doubles exhibition starring Djoković and the other Serbian pros. Family Sport, the Djokovićes' sports-marketing business, organized the event, and Novak's uncle Goran — a tall, friendly, ungainly guy with a permanently ringing cellphone — was in charge of logistics.

Family Sport's sole product, for now, is Novak, and the line of Novak paraphernalia being rolled out for the fund-raiser was impressive. There was your Novak key chain, your Novak CD case, water bottle, ballpoint pen, T-shirt, MP3 case. There was a Novak yo-yo. All this stuff would go like hotcakes, Goran assured me, inspecting the display cases. He pointed out a tennis ball the size of a basketball embossed with an image of Novak hitting a forehand. "We sold two thousand of those at Davis Cup," he said. Djoković led Serbia to a Davis Cup victory over Australia in September at Belgrade Arena, drawing the largest, most rabid crowd in the Cup's 100-year history. Goran agreed that the intensity of Novak worship in Serbia could hardly be greater, but other sales territories are a different story. "Worldwide, we are waiting," he said, "because we are in no hurry. Because we believe he will rule tennis for the next 10 years. We know the potential of Novak. We are expecting Adidas to make a Novak line. We expect to get full value for Novak's quality."

Marketing is, of course, not Novak's job. Tennis is. And the family's first priority, his uncle said, is to not get in the way of his game. "Our duty is to keep him relaxed," Goran said. "There is too much pressure on him. People are pushing him from every side."

To escape some of those people, Djoković recently moved to Monte Carlo. There were, to be sure, other reasons to make that move — low taxes; mild weather; good training facilities; his longtime girlfriend studying nearby in Milan. But I believed Djoković when he said that, if he could just get some privacy in his hometown, he'd rather be in Belgrade. The demands on him seemed incessant. During the days I was there, he couldn't even find time to hit. He finally cleared an hour — by making the prime minister, who was eager for another photo op before Djoković left town, cool his heels.

Training — fitness, flexibility, tennis drills, friendly matches — necessarily fills most of a touring pro's time between tournaments. But there is also the battle planning, the analysis. For Djoković, as for Nadal, this includes a lot of thinking about Federer's game. How do you neutralize the most lethal, multi-faceted combination of weapons the sport has ever seen?

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