Iva Jovic's Father on Proper Patience and Protection
An interview with Bojan Jovic, father of 18-year-old Australian Open quarterfinalist Iva, on the perils of raising a tennis prodigy.
MELBOURNE, Australia — The greatest value of being on site as a reporter at a tournament like the Australian Open is getting to talk to the people who are here: players, coaches, agents, and so on.
But as 18-year-old Californian Iva Jovic emerged as the breakthrough star of this women’s tournament with her run to the quarterfinals, I knew whom I most wanted to talk about her, and I knew that he was an ocean away.
Bojan Jovic, Iva’s father, had to leave Melbourne last week so he could return to his day job: He and his wife, Jelena—who moved from Serbia to the U.S. in 2003—are both pharmacy managers, working at separate locations of Ralphs Pharmacy in Los Angeles.
I’d first met Bojan last year here when his daughter reached the second round as a 17-year-old, and was immediately impressed by his attitude and approach to shepherding his daughter into this world.
I’ve met tennis parents who have made a range of impressions, to say the least. Bojan had what seemed to be a perfectly calibrated balance of closeness without overbearing, of protectiveness without controlling. He referred to his role, unpretentiously, as “chaperone,” and spoke about the family’s ambitions with considerable calm: the WTA’s age eligibility rules, often a source of complaints for parents, were no problem for him. In fact, even though his daughter had won multiple matches in major main draws, she hadn’t even turned professional yet.
Iva Jovic was ranked 191st when I first met her and her father; a year later, after steady results and a ranking spike in September from winning WTA 500 Guadalajara, she arrived to Melbourne Park as the No. 29 seed in the women’s draw.
Still, Jovic had things to prove at this Australian Open, and she has proven them: on her sixth try, she finally beat a top-20 opponent, taking out No. 7 Jasmine Paolini in the third round. She then backed that win up emphatically, trouncing Yulia Putintseva 6-0, 6-1.
Jovic, who had never before advanced past the second round at a major, was the most stunning of the six American players—four women, two men—who reached the singles quarterfinals at this Australian Open.
Her next test in Tuesday’s first quarterfinal will be far greater: top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka.
When I asked Jovic about her father in her most recent press conference, she called him “one of my biggest supporters” before praising her family as a whole.
“I’m super lucky to have a family that doesn’t just only look at me as a tennis player, but just wants me to be happy,” Iva Jovic said in her press conference when I asked her about her father. “That’s their ultimate goal. They want me to play tennis because I like it, not because they want me to be this big star, so I’m really grateful for them.”
This time Jovic is here with her coach, Tom Gutteridge, as well as her mother and her sister. If she can make it to Saturday’s final, her father will be able to return.
But in the meantime, after her win over Putintseva, Bojan Jovic was kind enough to speak to Bounces at length over the phone, discussing the age eligibility rule, opting out of college tennis, patience, and keeping his daughter safe in a world full of “characters” he wants her to avoid.
To read this interview, and previews of all of Tuesday’s quarterfinals at the Australian Open in a post that clocks in over 4,500 words, please subscribe to Bounces! -Ben
