Byzantine Blog

Novak Djokovic and Canada Serbs Receive Apologies

“Tennis Canada apologizes to Mr. Djokovic and the Serbian community for the incident that occurred during the closing ceremonies of the 2007 Rogers Cup in Montreal. The public address announcer accidentally stated that Mr. Djokovic was from another country other than Serbia.

“The misinformation given about Mr. Djokovic’s home country was completely accidental. Tennis Canada is very proud of our new champion and joins the Serbian community in honouring his victory. This success is another example of the growing strength of Serbian tennis which includes third-ranked Jelena Jankovic and defending Rogers Cup champion Ana Ivanovic, who are competing this week in Toronto,” reads the public statement at the Rogers Cup official web site, where the tournament winner, Serb Novak Djokovic was announced as a Croat during the award ceremony.

More Than Mistake?

While Novak brushed off the surprising blunder with a smile and few gracious words, many Serbs were unpleasantly jolted by the fact an official announcer of a highly regarded sporting event, who came out with the sole task to announce the winner and hand the tournament trophies, could be so ignorant as to not know under whose flag the guy he’s about to publicly congratulate has been playing for the past week.

Although some, predictably, prefer to present the incident as the Serbian touchiness over nothing — the unprofessionalism of their professional announcer somehow turns to be the Serbs’ fault — it’s not just the Serbs who thought the announcer’s sloppiness left a rather bad taste at a very joyous moment. Christopher Stromeyer of Tennis World Radio thinks the announcer should be fired:

“[...] It all started out with a huge mistake by the announcer. By now most tennis fans, and especially the people working at tennis tournaments, know that the new star in tennis is Serbian. The announcer seemed to think otherwise. He said, ‘And with you, the new champion... from Croatia, Novak Djokovic!’ A blunder that he should probably get fired for.”

Probably the way most Canadians, Americans and Brits would feel if one of their lads worked as hard to achieve such a spectacular feat under his country’s flag, only to end up being introduced as ...an Iranian.

Novak Will Be There

The announcer also apologized to both Novak and Canada Serbs:

“I wish to express my excuses as « in house » announcer of the Rogers Cup tennis tournament in Montreal for having named Croatia as the country of origin of Novak Djokovic during the closing ceremonies yesterday. I stand corrected and will be glad to say it right when Novak picks up his second trophy in Montreal in 2009.”

Both John McEnroe and Bjorn Borg appear quite confident Novak will be there to receive the 2009 Rogers Cup but, apart from failing to catch the announcer’s name, they seem unsure if the same guy will still be there to announce Novak properly at the time.