By Randy Walker
@TennisPublisher
Novak Djokovic may be the greatest tennis player to perform on the biggest stages of the sport.
But when he comes to his form playing the violin in Grand Slam tennis, he definitely plays “second fiddle” to Liz Kobak.
After his match wins at Wimbledon in 2024, Djokovic has played the “air violin” with his racquet as part of his post-match celebration, in homage to his six-year-old daughter Tara who is currently taking violin lessons. But it’s not the first time a violin has been played or mimicked to be played on a Grand Slam stadium court. That honor goes to Kobak, a standout American amateur player from Old Westbury, N.Y., who played the violin numerous times on Arthur Ashe Stadium at the U.S. Open.
“I think Novak definitely has good form in everything he does,” said Kobak of Djokovic’s violin moves at Wimbledon. “It’s funny to see him allude to violin and obviously the fact that his daughter plays, I think it’s a cute little hint of the fact that he’s really into what she’s up to off the court.”
Kobak, a three-time competitor in the U.S. Open junior championships, had the honor of performing on Arthur Ashe Stadium five times before night sessions at the U.S. Open, playing “America The Beautiful” on her violin. She was accorded the honor in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005.
“I can’t even put it into words how special that moment was the first time that I had stepped onto the stadium court to play America the Beautiful,” said Kobak, who first started playing the violin at age of four.
Kobak was one of the best junior tennis players in New York in the 14-and-unders and was a standout violin player as well. Her mother Dorothy suggested to the U.S. Tennis Association that perhaps she could play the violin as part of the U.S. Open’s entertainment offerings and to also pay homage to a local standout tennis player. The USTA bought into the excellent idea and put Kobak under the lights before a night session match in 2001 featuring Monica Seles. Kobak was invited back in 2002 and then again in 2003. But that year, not only was she playing her violin at the U.S. Open, but she competed in the junior girls’ singles competition, earning a wild card into the event by winning the USTA National Girls’ 16 Championships earlier in the summer. She played two more years in the U.S. Open junior championships and was set to play college tennis at Columbia University before injuries curtailed her competitive career.
While playing doubles at the 2006 Legg Mason Washington, D.C. $75,000 tournament, (now the Citi Open joint WTA / ATP event) she suffered a career-altering ACL knee injury while playing doubles with Madison Brengle against Su-Wei Hsieh, now one of the top doubles players in the world, and Tatiana Pouchek.
Said Kobak, “I hit a ball around the net post for a winner off a Su-Wei Hsieh drop shot, she hit a lot of drop shots back then, she does it a lot now. She’s the drop shot queen. I hit the ball around the post for a winner. I saw a ball kid and kinda stopped short and tore my ACL then. That was three weeks before college.”
Rather than playing college tennis for Columbia, Kobak suffered through two surgeries on her slow recovering knee that prevented from top level college tennis. When at grad school at Northwestern, she was able to play a few matches as a walk-on, but continued problems with her knee, as well as intense work in Northwestern’s Journalism program, prevented her from playing full-time.
Kobak, however, continues to play competitive tennis. She’s won eight USTA National Championship Gold Balls, including the singles, doubles and mixed doubles crowns at the USTA National Open Grass Court Championships at the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport in 2019. She also still plays the violin, often alongside her husband Joe, who also plays the saxophone.
Kobak, who now lives in Chicago and is a freelance writer and communications professional, plans to be at the 2024 U.S. Open and said she’d be happy to either tutor or play the violin alongside the young Tara Djokovic.
“It would be really fun to meet her and maybe I can give her a few tips or maybe we could even play a duet somewhere on site,” Kobak said. “Violin, like tennis, is an activity that can be enjoyed for a lifetime.”
