Janko Tipsarevic is the highest-profile player to announce a retirement in 2019. The 35-year-old Serbian, who spent two years in the ATP World Tour’s Top 10 and filled the role of its resident tattooed philosopher, reflected on his 16-year career—and revealed what’s next—in this exclusive interview with USOpen.org.
Q: Let’s start with the good news: You already have a retirement plan.
Janko Tipsarevic: Several years ago, we started the Tipsarevic Academy in Belgrade. It has grown exponentially. In 2020, we are starting international franchising in four different countries. It’s a very big challenge. I have a theory why franchising of tennis academies never actually works. In order to execute this, it will take a lot of my time. We grew way faster that I liked to, but this is a train that I cannot stop.
Q: Why is now the time to move on?
Janko Tipsarevic: The number-one reason is my body. It’s not allowing me to compete at the level that would make me happy. I'm talking Top 30. I’ve had bad luck, if I can call it that, in the last five years—seven surgeries down my legs. I still feel like I could play, but in tennis years, I'm older. Some weeks, I feel completely terrible.
Number two, as a family, we want some type of stability. In the last five years, it was always this mix: today am I doing surgeries, am I recovering, am I competing, am I doing surgery again? No matter how strong I tried to stay, the ups and downs were really affecting my mood and how I treat people around me.
Q: How long has retirement been on your mind?
Janko Tipsarevic: The first half of the year. I've been on this guilt trip for quite some time because if I devote too much time to the business, then I'm not a tennis plyer. I'm completely something else. I put tennis on the third or fourth place in my schedule during the day. If I devote myself 100 percent to being a tennis player, this takes six-to-seven hours a day. Not only practicing, but transportation, stretching, prevention, fitness, tennis, massage, ice bath. Then I had no energy left to do the other part. In the last year, this is something I was battling. I'm a big believer that when someone is ready to finish, they need to think about the next steps in their life. They need to find something that makes them happy and to replace that adrenaline that you're constantly having over the last 20 years of your competitive life. Otherwise if you don't, you're going to do stupid stuff.
Q: How did you feel about the attention on your tattoos when you started up the rankings?
Janko Tipsarevic: It annoyed me in the very beginning. My English is very good, and I don’t mind speaking about philosophical questions, but then people tended to think I was this deep thinker because I was reading Dostoevsky at the age of 15. So when we were starting to talk about the match, they would ask me only one or two questions, then start asking me about the tattoos, the meanings, how is your childhood. I was getting very annoyed.
Q: You wanted to be known as a competitor.
Janko Tipsarevic: The motto of my life is "keep digging." My big belief is our hopes and dreams aren't on the surface. If you really want something, you really need to dig deep even when you don't feel like digging. This is what kept me going and trying to come back. Even if I didn't (this time), I came back twice, once Top 50 and once Top 70. I never regretted it. I would regret way more not trying to do it, and five years after my first surgery, say, "Hey, I earned enough money, I'm going to buy some real estate and enjoy my life." Like this, I feel you grow tremendously as a person.
Q: Were you digging in today’s match?
Janko Tipsarevic: I was. This was a sign that it's time. I was playing a good first set, not a great second set, but you can see that my energy level, even though I was practicing decently the last 10 days, was going up and down, up and down, up and down. When I was playing my best tennis, my energy was constantly up. This was the factor that was overwhelming my opponents. Kind of like a David Ferrer.
US Open.org: Wear them down.
Q: Yeah. And today, losing in four because of fatigue was a sign that I don't see myself doing this in 2020. I'm going to play some more tournaments—they are all going to be indoors. I will play St. Petersburg, Chengdu, Shanghai, and Moscow. It’s my favorite swing. I won those tournaments in the past, and it’s best-of-three sets, and there’s no sun. I'm planning to retire in Madrid on Davis Cup.
Q: Was the fatigue a sign to you that you've dug as much as you can in this chapter of your life?
Janko Tipsarevic: I would like to think so. I think I really tried everything. A lot of the times in the last few years, I heard comments like, “What the hell are you doing? You've had all these surgeries and still trying to come back?” But this is just who I am. It’s what made me have a decent tennis career. Right now it's a bit emotional. It's my last Grand Slam, it's my favorite Grand Slam. But I am at peace with it because I feel that it's time. Kind of like a Dwayne Wade retirement. I'm not comparing myself to him, but I just like how he did it: He felt that it was time, he felt his basketball has fallen of a cliff, and just retired gracefully without [the equivalent of] playing challengers or futures or trying to come back next year. I don't see myself doing that.
Q: Would you prefer to be remembered by doing everything you can to give it a shot to come back, or your Top-10 tennis?
Janko Tipsarevic: If I could pick one, I would pick the first one. As a guy who really gave everything he could, who wasn’t able to come back to where he was and is still very happy. It sends a message to young and talented players, who are very scared of failing. Facing reality and giving everything you have, you might face a reality that you see that you're not good enough. This attitude is eventually how you become a winner.
