By Jake Davies
In 2016, Novak Djokovic achieved something special as he won a career Grand Slam, adding that elusive Roland Garros title to his collection. Carole Bouchard charts his quest to join a special club.
The Facts
The Quest, by Carole Bouchard
Published 2017
Summary
By winning the 2016 Roland-Garros, Novak Djokovic entered the ranks of tennis legend. After a decade of chase, the Serbian finally put his hands on the French Open trophy, completing his Career Grand Slam and achieving something no male player had done for 47 years – winning four Grand Slam titles in a row.
The Quest is the inside story of this historical win, of a two week chase after a trophy that was haunting Djokovic’s dreams and nightmares. It’s a unique look into the world and the mind of the game’s greatest champions. The heartbreaks, the prowess, the scars, the tears, the injuries, the doubts – the Djoker went through everything in Paris. But on this day in June, he found a way to unlock history, lifted by a crowd and a country that had adopted him.
Review
Djokovic’s journey to the 2016 Roland Garros trophy was an incredible journey. Never has a player experienced so many close calls and so many near misses, but continued to persevere in their quest to reach the top of the mountain to salvage that one thing they have been dreaming of such they were a youngster. In ‘The Quest’, Carole Bouchard not only captures the winning moment at the French Open, but she also manages to walk the reader through the long, testing and challenging process that Djokovic and his team had been on for years and years.
The book is very different to a lot of the tennis books I have previously read. The attention to detail is second to none. Bouchard guides the reader through the scar tissue of the Djokovic setbacks in previous years and talks about the obstacles that were placed in front of the Serb during his 2016 Roland Garros campaign.
She also provides exclusive interviews with Djokovic, his team and other notable people in the tennis world like well-respected coach Darren Cahill, who help explain what Djokovic must have been feeling in the buildup to that historic final, where he became just the third man to hold four Grand Slams at the same time and the eighth player overall to win the career grand slam.
The additional insights of former coach Marian Vajda, Cahill, Boris Becker and Patrick Mouratoglou help the reader understand the mentality, the psychological status of a top athlete experiencing the greatest of pressures, but the book allowed me to really see Djokovic in another light and to understand his personality to a greater extent.
Many see Djokovic as this superhuman machine, but there are many layers to the personality of this great sportsman and this book delivers in the sense that it encapsulates the emotions of the moment and the journey to get to that moment.
Audience
The book is a must-read for any big Djokovic fan, but it is also essential reading for any sports fan desperate to find out more about one of the most significant moments in modern tennis and one of the most astounding accomplishments in this sporting era.
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