It’s also very interesting to hear Janko talk about how his home-country Serbia feels about tennis at the moment. He says you cannot find tennis shoes in the Serbian stores right now, everything is sold out! Kids on the streets yell “Novak, Ana, Jelena…”

Reason #2: The nature of the pool of genes in that part of the world—inclined to excelling in the tennis game (just like African-Americans excel in basketball and Kenyans are the best runners in the world) | my own theory

Reason #3: Radiation Specifically, the NATO bombings “helped” the Serbs and the Chernobyl explosion determined Maria Sharapova’s success. | This is a philosophy that Janko Tipsarevic jokingly started when asked to speculate on the reasons for the recent success of the Serbian tennis players.

Reason # 4: Pure coincidence? There is always a possibility…

So, the tennis world was about the receive the biggest shock ever when another Serbian player showed his real power while playing Federer (the King of Tennis) in Round 3 of the Australian Open 2008.

In case you haven’t heard much about Janko Tipsarevic (who in my opinion deserves much more publicity than he has gotten so far), here is a short intro:

Meet Janko - Tipsa

Here is something cool Tipsarevic said in the press conference following the “epic” Federer match:

Q. It’s been said that in order to compete with Roger you have to delude yourself into thinking you can compete with Roger. How do you handle the issue of belief in a match like this, self‑belief?

JANKO TIPSAREVIC: My opinion about this is that you ‑‑ you have to believe that you’re going to beat Roger Federer when you go on court, as stupid as it might sound, as I said before the match.

If you go out there thinking I’m going to play a good match, make him sweat for his money or something like that, it’s not going to work. Because then when the chances are given to you, and even Roger Federer is giving chances, you’re not going to use them because you’re going to be too afraid from victory.

So I went on court with the idea that I can win. I was close. I lost because he was better in the important moments of the match.

Full interview over at the australianopen.com