The ATP World Tour takes centre court this month with the return of the Shanghai Rolex Masters. TALK recently caught up with current world number two, Novak Djokovic, to chat about his secrets to success, the coming of age of Serbian players and the changing of the guard in world tennis.

A Rafael Nadal win in last month’s US Open had an almost pre-ordained feel about it. For the 24 year old champion it completed a career Grand Slam, his third consecutive major championship and ninth overall. One man stood in his way. Novak Djokovic provided the only credible challenge to Nadal in a blistering final, becoming the sole opponent to take a set off him in the entire tournament. As the Roger Federer era winds down giving way to the Age of Nadal, the young Serbian seems ready and eager to take the Spaniard’s former role of perennial underdog challenger.

With Djokovic’s defeat of Federer in a marathon semi-final match of the US Open, coupled with disappointing outings for the Swiss at this year’s French Open and Wimbledon, there is a growing perception within the tennis world that the days of his dominance are well and truly over. While Federer’s record speaks for itself – 16 Grand Slam victories, more than anyone else in history – some pundits are now holding off on calling him the ‘greatest ever’ until Nadal’s career has run its course. In addition, when the three tennis giants roll into town for this month’s Shanghai Rolex Masters, Djokovic will be calling himself the number two ranked player in the world, having relieved Federer of that honour in New York.

For Djokovic, 23, getting to this point is an enormous accomplishment. Born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia in 1987, he started playing tennis at the age of four in a nation with little support infrastructure for non-team sports. “It was tough growing up in a country that didn’t have a huge tennis tradition,” he says. “There was no system to help players become professional. It was more themselves and their families supporting them and everybody kind of had their own way.”

Added to this handicap, Yugoslavia disintegrated in the 1990s in a series of violent and bloody civil wars, culminating in the NATO bombing of Belgrade in 1999. Young Novak was caught in the city during the air campaign against Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic and credits his family’s singular focus on his training getting them through those dark days. Soon thereafter, Djokovic left for Germany. “We had to leave the country for better practice conditions,” he says