He was born on March 5, 1997 in Belgrade. He has been in tennis for less than two decades, has „B“ and „C“ tennis licenses, and has been training young tennis players for about five years. While competing, he won third place at the National Championship of Serbia in tennis under 18, first place at the Belgrade Masters under 16 and 18, second place in the Team Championship of Serbia under 16, and was a member of the Serbian national team under 14, third in our country in the category up to 14 years, the first up to 12 years and the first in Belgrade at the age of 10, when he signed a contract with „Head“.
He was also a sparring partner of famous Serbian and regional tennis players, such as Bojana Jovanovski, Danka Kovinic, Aleksandra Krunic, Vesna Dolonc and Miki Jankovic.
He coached at least 30 young tennis players, and perfected his coaching skills by working for several years as the main assistant of Zoran Jovanovski, coach and father of Bojana Jovanovski, former 31st tennis player on the WTA list, who received many prestigious awards from world famous tennis academies, such as the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy. While they were cooperating, Zoran passed on to Vladimir his rich coaching experience, gained all over the planet.
„As a relatively young man, I ‘picked up’ a lot of experience. It made my coaching development a lot easier. I simply could not see and ‘pick up’ some exercises in Serbia from other coaches. These are exercises of professional players, which they used on their way to the top. My current goal is to bring several players on the ATP or WTA 500 list, to become professionals“, Vladimir points out.
He cooperated with Zoran until he was 20, when he became independent and started working as a coach at „Tennis Park Belgrade“ tennis club, and in the meantime he started training young tennis players in our tennis school, „Match’n play“. In his trainings, he first checks the motor and coordination abilities of children along with our fitness trainer, and only when he determines that the child is well developed, he begins to teach him the correct technique of playing tennis:
„A weekly work program is made, depending on whether the tennis player is in the competition or preparation period. We make sure that the tournaments are every other week so that the children have a week to improve their technique. If the child is in a competitive rhythm, we develop tactics to outwit the opponent, make backup plans… I work a lot on the serve, return and the first hit after the serve and return. For me, those are the key factors in tennis. I also want the players to hold the ball a lot. I also force players to play forehand, because, with good footwork, that was my greatest weapon throughout my career“.
He started coaching at the age of 17. At that time, he sparred with the tennis players of the Russian Tennis Academy in Thailand, among whom was Mikhail Youzhny, and saw that their trainings were far more advanced than the ones in Serbia. Therefore, upon his return to Serbia, he hesitated between attending college and a career as a tennis coach, through which he would try to raise tennis coaching in the country to a higher level.
He didn’t know that life had already decided for him.
Only a day after returning to his hometown, he received an invitation from Zoran Jovanovski to be a sparring partner of two tennis players in Canada for three months. He accepted the offer, and after that the opportunity to be his assistant.
„Tennis is important for children, because they develop individually. They have to make their own decisions during the match. When they play, they have to deal with themselves, they are on the court alone, there is no one around them, and that is good for development. That is why children who train tennis mature and become independent much faster. When they turn 17, 18, they already know how to continue to deal with challenges life puts in front of them, because tennis taught them that. At the same time, it is not a rough sport, there is no contact“, says Vladimir.
Vladimir has been playing sports since the age of five. He first practiced swimming, then soccer, but watching one tennis final from the stands in which Bojana Jovanovski played dragged him into tennis. At the age of seven and a half, he started training with Zoran.
„I fell in love with tennis because it is an individual sport. It bothered me when in a team sport, for example, football, which I trained, someone else scored a goal or didn’t pass the ball to me, and I had a chance. That’s who I am, I like to make decisions by myself. That is why I realized that a sport like tennis, in which I make my own decisions, is for me“, Vladimir concludes.
