Jelena Genčić - a Great Human Being Featured
- Written by Agneza Trpkovski
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BELGRADE – It was an honour for us to know, to talk and to co-operate with a great human being – Jelena Genčić, a great lady with a great heart and a lot of love, above all for the youngest, with whom she spent up to 12 hours a day on the tennis court, teaching them their first tennis steps and shots, at the age of no less than 77.
“I say to myself: ‘Jelena, slow down the pace’, but instead of slowing down, I speed it up. It’s not enough that I am on the court in the summer, but also in the middle of winter, I suffered chilblains on by hands and legs for being in the balloon. But a new and talented child appeared, and instead of slowing down in the winter, I doubled my efforts”, Jelena Genčić told a Serbian newspaper recently.
These words of hers explain the entirety and enormity of her lifelong enthusiasm in which Jelena, the tennis mother of Novak, Monika, Goran … and many others, persevered until her departure to, I am certain, lovely green pastures on which she will feel no fatigue but only happiness, happiness that she well deserved. She persevered and she lived quietly and unobtrusively, but her achievements were loud and known throughout the world. That is what our national heroes should be like – people whose work speaks more than words and who care and who are an example for the younger generations.
Through Work to Victories – She Lived More Lives in One
For most people three lives would not be enough to achieve what Jelena Genčić, a top-class tennis teacher, television director and a tireless worker achieved in her one life. Jelena leaves behind her world tennis champions documentaries about our cultural and historical heritage – a national treasure which should be protected.
In a recent lengthy interview for the Serbian House of Good News, in a desire to perform it when Jelena’s health was better, she said that in “tennis there is no retirement” and “once you enter that world, you stay there until the end”. And that is precisely what happened.
Genčić – My Best Years were on TV
Although tennis was her boundless love, Jelena told the Serbian House of Good News in March this year that her best period in life was working on television. Employed by Belgrade TV for more than four decades, she directed over 1,000 broadcasts for the cultural and artistic department, the music department, the theatrical and educational programmes.
“The only thing I never did was sports”, said Genčić, who was especially proud of a series of broadcasts done about Serbian monasteries, as well as Middle Age Serbian miniature painting, “because no one had done it before”. Also, she added, a serial on drug addiction, broadcast in a number of other countries. The serial took Genčić to a session of the United Nations...
Late in the 1990s she retired as a director, but, as she told us, she intended to “stay in tennis as long as she could”. That is what happened. Unfortunately, her greatest current wish did not come true – to once again manage the international tennis camp in Lukovska Banja.
Support of Jelena Genčić to the House of Good News
Mrs Genčić has offered her support to the Serbian House of Good News from its foundation, supporting our pioneering labour although through the many interviews she gave us. She said she was happy about “every piece of good news that can enrich and heal this world”. We thank her kindly for that.
We shall endeavour to realise at least a part of the numerous ideas and plans our internet newspaper intended to undertake together with Mrs Genčić, especially in respect of support of the ‘big’ sports to ‘little’ ones – for example, for the ‘tennis ball to support the table tennis ball’.
It was an honour for us; let the angels protect you, madame Genčić.