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When Enemies Attract	By : tennisstar Category: Individual Celebrities > Athlete/Sports Misc Views: 3349 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not know Roger Federer or Novak Djokovic, or claim that this is in any way representative of their true lives. I do not make any profit from the writing of this story. This is fiction.

Chapter List
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Chapter 1
Roger Federer stalked into the locker room after his straight sets loss to Novak Djokovic in the 2008 Australian Open. He knew the reporters were waiting for him, but the tennis champion found himself dreading their questions. This young arrogant Serbian knocked him off his throne, and in straight sets! He could blame his brief spout with food poisoning the previous week for the loss, five days of bed rest while Djokovic was out playing warm-up tournaments, but excuses are beneath Roger.
Mirka found him in his solemn state. Usually her presence brought him joy, or at least comfort, but today he was merely annoyed by his girlfriend. Choosing the cold disposition of his ‘manager’ rather than lover, she reminded him that the press was waiting on him and it would be rude to keep them waiting any longer. Reluctantly, he followed her to the conference area and answered their questions.
The press conference was a blur to Roger. He tried to be graceful about his defeat, and say only encouraging things about Djokovic and his ‘promising future’. There was no reason Roger should abandon his classy public demeanor. At least I can be remembered for that, the tennis champion thought bitterly. The ride back to the hotel was awkward. The Federer camp shared his limousine and an eerie silence filled the back seat. Mirka placed a comforting hand on Roger’s knee, though the gesture was lost on the Swiss man.
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After sulking in his room for several hours, Federer made his way down to the small pub on the lowest level of the hotel. Wearing a pair of dark jeans, a black colored t-shirt with a graphic design on the front in dark gold, and a navy blue beanie, Roger was doing his best to evade the notice of the pub’s other inhabitants. He got a mere half hour of solitary drinking time before he was interrupted.
“Why dark clothes? Mourning your career already, Roger?” spoke a familiar Spanish voice. Roger turned to find his good friend and on-court rival Rafael Nadal.
“Ah, Rafa. You should be mourning yours as well,” Federer commented somberly, taking a sip of his beer.
“Yes. I sulk last night,” Nadal replied, taking a seat on the barstool next to his competitor and making a small gesture to the bartender. “Today, I am positive. Competition is good. It gives us something to strive for. It doesn’t always have to be you and me in the final. That’s not tennis at its best, Fed.”
Somehow the Spaniard’s words were comforting. Though they often found themselves in finals matches, competing at the highest level of tennis, this pair managed a supportive friendship off-court about which few knew. They kept a light conversation about the tournament as a whole, their performances in each match, and even what caused their downfall in the semifinals. Federer’s evening was beginning to brighten up. That is until Novak Djokovic’s posse sauntered into the pub. The Murray brothers, Novak and his younger brother Marko took a table in the corner of the pub, all seeming quite tipsy already. They were so lost in their “celebrating” that they didn’t seem to notice the top two players in the world seated at the bar.
“What are they doing here?” Federer asked, returning to his foul mood.
“I’m sure you’ve gone out to celebrate with your friends after big matches too, Fed,” replied Nadal, not nearly as concerned with the rowdy crowd.
“Certainly not with only one day to prepare for a Grand Slam Final!” Roger said with frustration.
“He is young, he’ll learn. Now if you don’t mind terribly, I’m going to save myself a phone call and congratulate him now. Maybe even advise him a bit about Tsonga. I don’t think I’m ready for a wildcard to win the Aussie Open,” Nadal explained amusedly, hoping this gesture would not offend the number one player; they had been getting along so nicely lately. Federer offered only a grunt in reply and waved Rafa off toward the party table.
“Congratulations, Novak. I hear you are on the verge of your first Grand Slam title,” Nadal offered conversationally.
“Thank you, Rafa. But I haven’t won yet,” Djokovic replied, fighting with his tongue to not slur the words.
“Well I cheer for you, man. And I know Fed will be too…eventually,” the Spaniard gestured to the number one player at the bar, turned away from them. For the first time that night Novak noticed the brunette man brooding across the room. He gave a grateful smile and nodded, suddenly lost in thought.
The first thing on his mental agenda was how rude they must appear, drinking and partying freely in front of the man he just defeated. ‘Great, I bet he hates me by now. This will certainly make our matches awkward,’ Novak thought, relieved that the words in his mind were clearer than the ones slurring out of his mouth. When Nadal returned to his friend at the bar, Novak shared his sudden somber feelings with his pals.
“He prolly thinks we’re jerks, man. Rubbing it in his face,” Novak reluctantly admitted, pushing away his drink and opting for a large handful of cheesy fries.
“We didn’t know he was here, mate,” Andy sympathized. “He is probably far too pissed to notice by now. Roger was here before us.”
While his friends attempted to reassure him, Novak filled his stomach with the starchy cheese-covered vegetable on the plate in front of him, hoping that the old wives’ tale about food being a sobering agent is somewhat true. After several handfuls of greasy fries, or “chips” as the Murrays insisted they were called, and three bottles of mineral water, Novak was sobering up. He was suddenly aware of how much of an idiot he had been, celebratory drinking before he had much to celebrate and proving himself to be one of the most immature players on the tour. How was he supposed to earn the respect of the two men sitting at the bar if he put on such foolish displays?
At some point during his mental ramblings, Federer had left the hotel pub leaving Nadal alone at the bar. Curious to see the impression he had made, Novak joined the Spaniard.
“So did I make an ass out of myself or what?” Novak joked as he approached his tennis comrade.
“Well you certainly proved your age,” Nadal returned the jest, not acknowledging that he is the same age as the Serb. “I take it you are not familiar with alcohol.”
“Not at all. One or two drinks here and there, usually after I lose matches though. Andy said this is what people do when they beat the number one player in the world. How do you usually celebrate?”
“At my first Slam final I was the same. I won the French only days after my twentieth birthday. Double the celebrating was due. But you still have a huge match and I’m sure you wake up with hangover from hell tomorrow.”
“I’m beginning to feel it already,” Novak agreed. He was trying to think of a way to casually segue Roger back into the conversation; though when his brief pause turned to awkward silence Novak abandoned the smooth form of conversing and just asked the question on his mind. “Do you think I should apologize to Roger? I swear we didn’t know he was here.”
“Well he wasn’t really that mad, but you could I guess. He just headed up to his room, suite 607,” Nadal replied, smiling slyly. He knew Roger was angry, but the Spaniard felt that a confrontation was needed between the two men and it was probably best kept away from the media.
Djokovic thanked Rafa for the information and left the bar after saying goodnight to his group, explaining that he was suddenly very tired. Once in the lobby he jogged to the elevator and pushed the up button repetitively until the doors slid open. There was a beautiful woman in the elevator in a sexy red dress that was obviously insulted when Novak didn’t give her a second glance, but he was far too busy arranging words in his head so he wouldn’t make a fool of himself again in front of the well-respected Swiss man who already believed him to be exceptionally arrogant.
When the doors finally opened on the sixth floor, Novak took off running in the direction of the seventh room, inadvertently insulting the woman further. Just as he was about to step up to knock on the door, an irate looking Mirka stormed out the door. She glared at the young tennis player before slamming the door behind her and walking off in a huff toward the elevator. For a moment Novak questioned if he should face Federer at all, but eventually he got the nerve to knock softly on the door.
“Mirka, could this wait until tomorrow?” Roger said loudly as he walked toward the door. Opening it dramatically with his glare of annoyance firmly in place he was taken aback to find the taller frame of a man outside his door. His cheeks flushed with embarrassment when he realized that his competitor had just heard him speak rather rudely at what he assumed to be his manager/girlfriend coming back for round two of their argument. A moment of panic hit him. What if Novak shared that with the press? Mirka and Roger work very hard to keep their relationship looking peachy for the press, or really to hide the not so peachy moments from prying eyes. Novak readjusted his stance outside the door awkwardly, shaking Roger from his thoughts and onto a new one.
“What are you doing here, Djokovic?” Roger asked in a harsher tone than he intended.
“I um,” Novak stumbled on his words, his prepared speech from the elevator slipping away. “Could I come in?” he asked earnestly, not wanting to bear his soul in the hallway.
Federer took a step back from the door frame allowing the Serbian to slip past him into the entry room. Novak sat casually on the sofa by the door, Roger choosing to sit in the chair facing him. They sat in awkward silence for a few moments before Novak spoke.
“I uh—I just wanted to apologize for um—for the way me and the guys acted back in the pub. I know we were being rowdy and probably really annoying, and really overdid it with the alcohol,” Novak said quickly, inwardly wondering when he began overusing the word ‘really’ and deciding that it was a recent development...like in the last five minutes.
A smirk formed on Roger’s face. “Don’t worry about it,” he said calmly. “It is easy to go too far with the Murray boys. They like their booze,” he joked. Novak nodded in agreement.
“So are we good?” the Serb asked hopefully.
“Yeah, we’re good,” Federer replied, his anger slipping away. It had been awhile since he had spent time with Novak off court. He had forgotten that when the competitiveness of their profession was turned off, and the Serb was away from the media, the boy could be quite pleasant.
“I was actually hoping to run into you before your match against Tsonga,” Roger said before abruptly standing up and walking into the larger connected bedroom, wondering vaguely to himself why he suddenly wanted to help the Serb. He returned moments later with a red file folder.
“Here,” Federer said, handing the folder to the younger man.
Novak opened the file gently, not sure what to expect. “Your notes on Tsonga?” he asked as soon as he saw the French player’s picture.
“Yeah. I had Mirka make a copy. Someone might as well get some use out of them,” he said, trying to hide the mild frustration that still plagued him. He was so ready for that match. It wasn’t entirely true that this copy was meant for Novak, it was really just an extra copy that would have gone to his coach if Roger had won.
“Are you sure you want me to have these?” Novak was a bit shaken. Here he was trying to apologize to someone he was sure hated him and instead the man gives him a game plan to win? As he looked over the notes, Novak noticed many helpful strategies scribbled in the margins around Tsonga’s statistics, ideas the he probably wouldn’t have come up with on his own.
“Yes. Rafa and I talked about it. We don’t want a wildcard to win the Aussie Open. If it can’t be one of us, then we’d like it to be you,” Roger said confidently, hoping that the Serb didn’t approach Rafa about it, considering no such plan had been made.
Novak nodded in agreement. He didn’t think it was appropriate to have such a low ranked player win a Grand Slam either. He had to defeat Tsonga if he ever wanted to be in the same league as Rafa and Roger.
“Watch out for his serve. It’s modeled after Roddick’s, and he loves to come up to net off his first serve. His forehand is his biggest weapon, but his backhand isn’t bad either. He has a slight preference for down the line backhands so be careful not to leave that area vulnerable.”
Novak was taking mental notes. He had watched the Nadal and Murray matches against Tsonga, but he hadn’t noticed all those things. The only thing he noticed about Tsonga was the raw power behind his strokes, which wasn’t nearly enough to form a game plan around.
They talked tennis for awhile longer before switching to mild gossiping about others on the tour. After returning from the restroom, Roger found his competitor sleeping on the couch. “Geez, I wasn’t gone that long, was I?” he said jokingly, but the Serb didn’t respond. Roger chuckled to himself and fetched the extra blanket from the closet and a pillow from the bed. Once he had the younger player settled in, Roger changed clothes and climbed into his bed.
Roger found that sleep didn’t come easily to him that night, despite all the alcohol. He was left pondering the day’s events, and the strange ending to his night. It was hard to imagine that just four hours ago he had been in the hotel pub, drowning his sorrows in alcohol and hating on the Serbian tennis player who had easily dismissed him on court. He was still angry about that and Novak’s behavior afterwards, but there was no hint of arrogance in Djokovic once he entered Federer’s room. Perhaps he was trying to be polite, or scared to be off his turf and so clearly on the other player’s ground. It was a side of Novak that Federer hadn’t seen and he was troubled by his snap judgment about the younger man. It was rare for Roger to think poorly of another person, even rarer for him to think badly of a fellow tennis player, but from the moment he met Novak he disliked him. It might have started even earlier than that. As a habit, Roger regularly tunes into the juniors matches at the Grand Slams, checking out future competitors and supporting the youngsters, who always get a kick out of his presence at their match. This is where Roger first saw Djokovic.
It was the 2004 Australian Open, four years ago. Novak had made it all the way to the Semifinals before being shut out in straight sets. It wasn’t a lack of talent that caused the Serb to lose, but rather an attitude problem that was evident from the moment he walked on court. It was strange to see a junior player be so cocky, especially in the presence of the world number one. If Roger could have predicted Novak’s future based on that match, he would have written him off completely. There is no place for that kind of behavior on the ATP tour, or so he thought. It was funny to think that the racket-throwing, obscenity-yelling kid from that match had just sought him out to apologize for something as minor as going overboard in celebrations. Roger was proud that the Serb respected him enough to rush over so quickly to apologize, wanting to be in Federer’s good graces.
After what must have been an hour of reflection, Roger finally drifted to sleep, still thinking about the man currently passed out on his sofa.
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A/N: This story is WIP and also posted on the tennisslash LJ community and very recently at Archive of Our Own so if you recognize it, that's where you've seen it.
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When Enemies Attract