Slobodan Živojinović

Slobodan Živojinović

Živojinović at Wimbledon in the 1980s
Country	Yugoslavia
Residence	Belgrade, Serbia
Born	(1963-07-23) July 23, 1963 Belgrade, SR Serbia, SFR Yugoslavia
Height	1.98 m (6 ft 6 in)
Turned pro	1981
Retired	1992
Plays	Right-handed
Prize money	$1,450,654
Singles
Career record	150–138
Career titles	2
Highest ranking	No. 19 (October 26, 1987)
Grand Slam Singles 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	No. 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 to be the World No. 1 in doubles. As a singles player, he reached the semi-finals of the 1985 Australian Open and the 1986 Wimbledon Championships, achieving a career-high ranking of World No. 19.

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 World No. 19.

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)

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)

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, 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 Nyström 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

• A = did not participate in the tournament
• NH = tournament not held
• SR = the ratio of the number of singles tournaments won to the number of those tournaments played

Personal

Živojinović was married to Zorica Desnica with whom he has a son Filip. In 1991, Živojinović divorced her and married popular Bosnian 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, Yugoslavia's biggest commercial folk singing star ever. 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 in 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 are still together.

References

External links

• Slobodan Živojinović at the Association of Tennis Professionals

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