Slobodan Živojinović

Slobodan Živojinović
Слободан Живојиновић
Country  Yugoslavia
Residence Belgrade, Serbia
Born July 23, 1963
Belgrade, Serbia
(then Yugoslavia)
Height 6 ft 6 in (198 cm)
Turned pro 1981
Retired 1992
Plays Right-handed
Career prize money $ 1,450,654
Singles
Career record 150–138
Career titles 2
Highest ranking 19 (October 26, 1987)
Grand Slam results
Australian Open SF (1985)
French Open 3R (1988)
Wimbledon SF (1986)
US Open 3R (1987)
Doubles
Career record 151–102
Career titles 8
Highest ranking 1 (September 8, 1986)

Slobodan Živojinović (Serbian Cyrillic: Слободан Живојиновић, Serbian pronunciation: [slɔbɔ̌dan ʒiʋɔjǐːnɔʋit͡ɕ]; born on July 23, 1963) is a retired Serbian tennis player who competed for SFR Yugoslavia. Together with Nenad Zimonjić he is the only tennis player from Serbia that held the highest doubles ranking. Živojinović is president of Serbia Tennis Federaton.

Contents

Personal life

Slobodan Živojinović was born in Belgrade, SR Serbia, SFR Yugoslavia. He is married to folk singer Lepa Brena.

Tennis career

Živojinović represented SFR Yugoslavia as the number fifteen seed at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea, where he was defeated in the second round by France's Guy Forget.

The right-hander won two career singles titles (Houston, 1986 and Sydney, 1988), as well as eight doubles titles. He reached his highest singles ATP ranking on October 26, 1987, when he became the number 19 in the world.

Živojinović's most notable Grand Slam results were two semifinals. As an unseeded player at the 1985 Australian Open, he memorably beat John McEnroe in a gruelling 5-set quarterfinal to reach the semi-finals (where he lost in straight sets to Mats Wilander). The next year, at the 1986 Wimbledon semifinal, again as an unseeded player, he lost to Ivan Lendl in a hard fought five-set match.

Over the course of his career, Živojinović amassed an overall singles record of 150 wins and 138 defeats. He was much more successful in doubles competition, winning the U.S. Open in 1986 with Andrés Gómez. That same year, he won three more tournaments. He was ranked as the No. 1 doubles player in the world on September 8, 1986.

Career titles (10)

Singles (2)

Legend
Grand Slam (0)
Tennis Masters Cup (0)
ATP Tour (2)
No. Date Tournament Surface Opponent in the final Score in the final
1. November 17, 1986 Houston, United States Carpet Scott Davis 6–1, 4–6, 6–3
2. October 10, 1988 Sydney, Australia Hard (i) Richard Matuszewski 7–6(8), 6–3, 6–4

Doubles (8)

Legend
Grand Slam (1)
Tennis Masters Cup (0)
ATP Tour (7)
No. Date Tournament Surface Partner Opponents in the final Score
1. July 8, 1985 Boston, United States Hard Libor Pimek Peter McNamara
Paul McNamee		 2–6, 6–4, 7–6
2. March 17, 1986 Brussels, Belgium Carpet Boris Becker John Fitzgerald
Tomáš Šmíd		 7–6, 7–5
3. March 24, 1986 Rotterdam, The Netherlands Carpet Stefan Edberg Wojtek Fibak
Matt Mitchell		 2–6, 6–3, 6–2
4. August 26, 1986 US Open, New York City Hard Andrés Gómez Joakim Nystrom
Mats Wilander		 4–6, 6–3, 6–3, 4–6, 6–3
5. March 23, 1987 Brussels, Belgium Carpet Boris Becker Chip Hooper
Michael Leach		 7–6, 7–6
6. March 30, 1987 Milan, Italy Carpet Boris Becker Sergio Casal
Emilio Sánchez		 3–6, 6–3, 6–4
7. October 8, 1988 Tokyo, Japan Carpet Andrés Gómez Boris Becker
Eric Jelen		 7–5, 5–7, 6–3
8. February 12, 1990 Brussels, Belgium Carpet Emilio Sánchez Goran Ivanišević
Balázs Taróczy		 7–5, 6–3

Team competition titles (1)

No. Date Team competition Surface Partner/Team Opponents in the final Score in final
1. May 27, 1990 World Team Cup, Düsseldorf, Germany Clay Goran Ivanišević
Goran Prpić		 Jim Courier
Brad Gilbert
Ken Flach
Robert Seguso		 2–1

Grand Slam Singles performance timeline

Tournament 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 Career SR
Australian Open A A A SF NH 3R 3R 2R A A 0 / 4
French Open 1R A 2R 2R 1R 1R 3R 1R 1R A 0 / 8
Wimbledon A A A 2R SF QF 4R 4R 1R 1R 0 / 7
U.S. Open A A A 1R 1R 3R A 1R A A 0 / 4
Grand Slam SR 0 / 1 0 / 0 0 / 1 0 / 4 0 / 3 0 / 4 0 / 3 0 / 4 0 / 2 0 / 1 0 / 23

Personal

Živojinović was married to Zorica Desnica with whom he has a son Filip. In 1991, Živojinović divorced her and married popular folk singer Lepa Brena.

Though undeniably well-known for his tennis, Živojinović's media prominence, especially in the years since his retirement, also owes a lot to his marriage to Lepa Brena, at one point Yugoslavia's biggest commercial folk singing star. Their wedding on December 7, 1991 was a supreme media event throughout the then still existing Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The lavish ceremony took place at Belgrade's InterContinental Hotel with Ion Ţiriac as the groom's best man. The level of interest in the event was such that Brena's manager Raka Đokić even released a VHS tape of the wedding for commercial exploitation.[1] Their very public relationship has been providing steady fodder for various yellow media publications ever since.

The couple have two sons - Stefan (born in New York City during May 1992) and Viktor. In the afternoon hours of Thursday, November 23, 2000, 8-year-old Stefan was kidnapped by members of Zemun mafia clan and returned on Tuesday five days later on the side of Belgrade-Niš highway for the ransom sum reported to be more than DM 2 million.[2]

Throughout 2005 and 2006 there were numerous tabloid reports about Živojinović's supposed infidelity and bad state of his marriage. Finally, in April 2006 he reportedly even moved out of the family home following yet another argument with Brena.[3] Though the reports of a separation were frequent and detailed,[4] the couple still remain together.

References

  1. ^ Svadba decenije
  2. ^ Stefan predat na niškom autoputu, Glas javnosti, December 1, 2000
  3. ^ Boba ostavio Lepu Brenu, index.hr, April 5, 2006
  4. ^ Svet, April 13, 2006

External links

Sporting positions
Preceded by
Yannick Noah
Andrés Gómez
Andrés Gómez		 World No. 1 (doubles)
August 25, 1986 - September 7, 1986
September 22, 1986 - October 19, 1986
November 10, 1986 - November 23, 1986		 Succeeded by
Andrés Gómez
Andrés Gómez
Andrés Gómez