Original article (in Serbian) was published on 4/4/2025; Author: Teodora Koledin
A reader of FakeNews Tragac contacted our editorial team with a request to verify the information, claiming that Novak Djokovic donated bicycles to students who set off for Strasbourg yesterday. It turned out the report was justified, as the Novak Djokovic Foundation told us they could neither confirm nor deny the mentioned news, while the student cyclists from Novi Sad involved in organizing the “Tour to Strasbourg” denied the story.
The reported news was published on the web portal “Istok” and claimed that the Serbian tennis player “is using all the prize money from Miami to buy bicycles for students riding to Strasbourg”, relying on a supposed quote from him: “I’m sorry I didn’t win my 100th trophy, but I decided that even second place is worthwhile. I will give all the prize money to our students for new bikes for the trip to Strasbourg. They already have a pump!” However, this statement is not authentic.
We first sent an inquiry about the donation to the Novak Djokovic Foundation, which responded that they can only provide information related to their official projects:
“Regarding the donation, it’s important to note that our founder often donates independently and anonymously for various purposes. Therefore, we as a foundation are not in a position to confirm or deny such claims.”
Nevertheless, a direct denial was received by Tragac from the student cyclists in Novi Sad. “Unfortunately, the news that Djokovic donated anything to us is completely false”, they stated, explaining that they already “have everything they need thanks to donations from the rest of Serbia and the diaspora, whose support is carrying them toward their goal”.
The supposed quote from the Serbian tennis player was originally posted on an Instagram page called “cista posteljina”, and at the time of writing this analysis, the questionable post had been liked by more than 40,000 users on the platform. “Bravo Nole, you never let your people down”, “Bravo, great man”, were just some of the many comments found below the post.
If we pay attention to the details, we’ll notice that the hashtag #fakequotes was included in the caption. Additionally, the description of the page itself states that 99% of the news and quotes on it are “made up”. This, however, did not prevent the spread of this disinformation, which quickly appeared on many other platforms like X, Facebook, and TikTok. The web portal Istok published the information without a disclaimer, that is, without noting that it was a joke, false, or satirical content.
Although the famous tennis player has publicly supported the student protests on several occasions, the news about this particular donation turned out to be fake.
