Jelena Genčić ( sr-cyr, Јелена Генчић, ; 9 October 1936 – 1 June 2013) was a

Serbia Serbia (, ; Serbian language, Serbian: , , ), officially the Republic of Serbia (Serbian language, Serbian: , , ), is a landlocked country in Southeast Europe, Southeastern and Central Europe, situated at the crossroads of the Pannonian Bas ...

n tennis and handball player and coach. In the 1970s she became a junior tennis coach and was later credited for playing a major role in the early development of numerous future top class professional players and Grand Slam champions. Among the players she discovered and coached are

Monica Seles Monica Seles (; hu, Széles Mónika, ; sr, Моника Селеш, Monika Seleš; born December 2, 1973) is a retired professional tennis player who represented Yugoslavia and the United States. A former world No. 1, she won nine Grand Slam ...

Novak Djokovic Novak Djokovic ( sr-Cyrl, Новак Ђоковић, translit=Novak Đoković, ; born 22 May 1987) is a Serbian professional tennis player. He has been ranked world No. 1 for a record total 373 weeks, and has finished as the year-end No. 1 ...

Goran Ivanišević Goran Ivanišević (; born 13 September 1971) is a Croatian former professional tennis player and current coach. He is the only player to win a The Championships, Wimbledon, Wimbledon singles title as a Wild card (sports)#Professional tennis, w ...

Mima Jaušovec Mima Jaušovec (; born 20 July 1956) is a retired Yugoslavian tennis player. She won the 1977 French Open singles championship. Early life Jaušovec was born in Maribor, in present-day Slovenia, when it was part of Yugoslavia. Career As a gir ...

Iva Majoli Iva Majoli-Marić (born 12 August 1977) is a former professional tennis player from Croatia who played for both Yugoslavia and Croatia. She upset Martina Hingis to win the women's singles title at the French Open in 1997. Majoli also won seven ot ...

, and

Tatjana Ječmenica Tatjana Ječmenica-Jevtić ( sr-Cyrl, Татјана Јечменица-Јевтић; born July 4, 1978) is a Serbian former professional tennis player. Since 2014, she has been captain of Serbia Fed Cup team. This is her second stint at the helm, ...

. Genčić-coached players went on to collect 33

Grand Slam Grand Slam most often refers to: * Grand Slam (tennis), one player or pair winning all four major annual tournaments, or the tournaments themselves Grand Slam or Grand slam may also refer to: Games and sports * Grand slam, winning category te ...

single titles: Djokovic 21, Seles 9, Ivanišević 1, Jaušovec 1, and Majoli 1.

Early life and education

Born as one of seven children to Serbian father Jovan and Austrian mother Hermina, Jelena came from the prominent Genčić family in Serbia. Her grandfather Lazar Genčić studied medicine in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

, becoming one of Serbia's first surgeons in addition to setting up and running a military hospital while simultaneously holding the rank of a

Royal Serbian Army The Army of the Kingdom of Serbia ( sr-cyr, Војска Краљевине Србије, Vojska Kraljevine Srbije), known in English language, English as the Royal Serbian Army, was the army of the Kingdom of Serbia that existed between 1882 a ...

general in

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

Serbian campaign The Serbian campaign was a series of military expeditions launched in 1914 and 1915 by the Central Powers against the Kingdom of Serbia during the First World War. The first campaign began after Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia on July ...

. Her great uncle

Đorđe Genčić Đorđe Genčić (; 16 November 1861 – 19 October 1938) was a Serbian and Yugoslav industrialist and politician. He served as the Mayor of Niš (1894-1899), Minister of Internal Affairs (1899-1900) and the Minister of National Economy (1903). H ...

was the

interior minister An interior minister (sometimes called a minister of internal affairs or minister of home affairs) is a cabinet official position that is responsible for internal affairs, such as public security, civil registration and identification, emergency ...

in the cabinet of

Nikola Pašić Nikola Pašić ( sr-Cyrl, Никола Пашић, ; 18 December 1845 – 10 December 1926) was a Serbian and Yugoslav politician and diplomat who was a leading political figure for almost 40 years. He was the leader of the People's Radical P ...

and one of the chief conspirators of the May Coup. She graduated with a degree in

art history Art history is the study of aesthetic objects and visual expression in historical and stylistic context. Traditionally, the discipline of art history emphasized painting, drawing, sculpture, architecture, ceramics and decorative arts; yet today ...

from the

University of Belgrade The University of Belgrade ( sr, / ) is a public university in Serbia. It is the oldest and largest modern university in Serbia. Founded in 1808 as the Belgrade Higher School in revolutionary Serbia, by 1838 it merged with the Kragujevac-b ...

Faculty of Philosophy A faculty is a division within a university or college comprising one subject area or a group of related subject areas, possibly also delimited by level (e.g. undergraduate). In American usage such divisions are generally referred to as colleges ...

. She later obtained a second degree in

psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries betwe ...

Career

Sports

Genčić was a

handball Handball (also known as team handball, European handball or Olympic handball) is a team sport in which two teams of seven players each (six outcourt players and a goalkeeper) pass a ball using their hands with the aim of throwing it into the g ...

and tennis player, playing the two sports in parallel. She began pursuing tennis in 1948 at the age of eleven. In 1954, the seventeen-year-old competed at the

Wimbledon Wimbledon most often refers to: * Wimbledon, London, a district of southwest London * Wimbledon Championships, the oldest tennis tournament in the world and one of the four Grand Slam championships Wimbledon may also refer to: Places London * ...

in girls' singles. Meanwhile, in handball, Genčić played the

goalkeeper In many team sports which involve scoring goals, the goalkeeper (sometimes termed goaltender, netminder, GK, goalie or keeper) is a designated player charged with directly preventing the opposing team from scoring by blocking or intercepting o ...

position at ŽRK Crvena zvezda in both outdoor and

indoor Indoor(s) may refer to: *the interior of a building *Indoor environment, in building science, traditionally includes the study of indoor thermal environment, indoor acoustic environment, indoor light environment, and indoor air quality *Built envi ...

versions of the sport. She further made the Yugoslav women's national team, representing the country at the 1956 World Outdoor Handball Championship in

West Germany West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...

and winning bronze at the inaugural 1957 World Championships held at home in Belgrade. In 1963, at the age of twenty-seven, she quit handball, devoting herself fully to tennis. In addition to being a member of

Partizan Partizan may refer to: Sport * JSD Partizan, a sports society from Belgrade, Serbia, which includes the following clubs: **AK Partizan, athletics ** Biciklistički Klub Partizan, cycling ** Džudo Klub Partizan, judo **FK Partizan, association fo ...

tennis club, Genčić competed at various tournaments around the globe.

Media

Genčić worked as

television director A television director is in charge of the activities involved in making a television program or section of a program. They are generally responsible for decisions about the editorial content and creative style of a program, and ensuring the prod ...

at the state-owned television network

TV Belgrade Radio Television of Serbia ( sr-Cyrl, Радио-телевизија Србије, sr-Lat, Radio-televizija Srbije, italics=yes; abbr. RTS/PTC) is Serbia's public broadcaster. It broadcasts and produces news, drama, and sports programming thro ...

. Her work on television rarely overlapped with sports as she was mostly involved with producing arts-and-culture programmes dealing with the history of art in Serbia, classical music, and theater.

Tennis administration and coaching

In 1968, as tennis went professional with the beginning of its

open era The racket sport traditionally named lawn tennis, invented in Birmingham, England now commonly known simply as tennis, is the direct descendant of what is now denoted real tennis or royal tennis, which continues to be played today as a separate sp ...

, thirty-one-year-old Genčić, still very much an active player, began to be groomed for an eventual full-time tennis administrative career with a board position given to her at Partizan tennis club. Though already coaching on an informal basis, in 1976, after retiring from active play, Genčić became a tennis coach. Over the following 30 years she played a part in discovering and coaching

, and

.Novak Djokovic thrashes Grigor Dimitrov in French Open
''BBC News website'', 1 June 2013 Jelena Genčić was also great personal development coach. Her teachings about visualizing the results in sports had a great impact on

tennis career.

References

Sources

External links

Jelena Gencic and Novak Djokovic
on

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

U ogledalu vremena: Jelena Genčić
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gencic, Jelena 1936 births 2013 deaths Sportspeople from Belgrade Serbian female handball players Serbian female tennis players Serbian tennis coaches Serbian people of Austrian descent University of Belgrade Faculty of Philosophy alumni Novak Djokovic coaches Yugoslav female tennis players