If you’re watching the legendary Novak Djokovic play in Wimbledon 2025, you may see him doing a motion with his arms after he wins: it’s a “pumping” motion, something we may not have seen before from the men’s tennis great.
So what’s the deal here?
There are folks who believe it’s Djokovic not-so-subtly throwing support behind students who are protesting in his native Serbia. Their rallying cry is “Pump it!” (or “Pumpaj!”). After a collapse at Novi Sad rail station in 2024, demonstrations began which included students putting together blockades at their schools aimed at the government because of corruption.
The “pump it” phrase is meant to say that they’re continuing to put pressure on the government.
But Djokovic claimed it wasn’t about the protests, but rather a message to his kids, per a translated answer he gave at Wimbledon:
“Pumping? I’ll celebrate every victory like that! … It’s between me and my kids. We’ve got two songs we’ve been listening to lately. We talked about how that choreography could be fitting for every win at Wimbledon. That’s how I’ll celebrate in the future at Wimbledon. It’s a symbolic parallel! One is a foreign song, a ‘dance’ hit called ‘Pump It Up,’ and the other is ‘Throw Everything Off,’ where at one point it says ‘pump it, pump it, why’d you stop.'”
Maybe it’s a little bit of both? Either way, there’s your answer.