Novak Djokovic insisted that his friend who used to date his wife, Jelena, is still his mate and has his own family now.
The Serbian set the record straight as he denied doing anything nefarious to “steal” Jelena during his interview with Piers Morgan.
He first met Jelena in the early 2000s and the two bonded by playing tennis together before they began dating “four or five years later,” he told Morgan.
The 38-year-old first learned about Jelena, 39, when his friend professed his love for her after a tennis match.
“It was funny because the first time I heard about her was when that friend, who was in the same tennis club as me, played a match for the regional tennis league and we won an important match, he took off his jersey and underneath the jersey he had the white shirt written, ‘Jelena, I love you. This is for you,'” Djokovic said.
“And we were like, ‘Oh my God, this is so lame. Why would you do that?’ And then who is this Jelena? And it was her.”
Djokovic and Jelena dated in the early days of his tennis career before marrying in 2014. On his friend and wife’s ex, he added: “He’s good. He moved on. He has his family. We actually never spoke about it.”