Goran Ivanišević

Goran Ivanišević (Croatian pronunciation: ['ɡǒran ˌiʋa'nǐːʃeʋitɕ]; born 13 September 1971) is a Croatian former professional tennis player and current coach. He was ranked world No. 2 in men's singles by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) in July 1994. Ivanišević won 22 ATP Tour-level singles titles, including the 2001 Wimbledon Championships. He is the only singles player to win Wimbledon as a wild card, achieving the feat while ranked world No. 125. He had previously been runner-up at Wimbledon in 1992, 1994, and 1998. Ivanišević was known for his powerful left-handed serve, and for almost two decades held the record for most aces at Wimbledon with 1,377 (before Roger Federer broke it in 2019). He was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 2020.

Following his playing career, Ivanišević coached Marin Čilić from September 2013 to July 2016, leading Čilić to a major title at the 2014 US Open. He then coached Novak Djokovic from 2019 to 2024, leading Djokovic to nine major titles. He shortly coached Elena Rybakina in early 2025. He currently coaches Arthur Fils.

Goran is the son of Gorana (née Škaričić) and Srđan Ivanišević. As a boy, he was trained by Jelena Genčić. He turned professional in 1988 and, later that year, with Rüdiger Haas, won his first career doubles title in Frankfurt. Although he focused mostly on his singles career, he also had some success in doubles, winning nine titles and reaching a career-high ranking of 20.

In 1989, as a qualifier he made the quarterfinals of the Australian Open. Ivanišević made his first significant impact on the tour in 1990, knocking Boris Becker out of the first round of the French Open men's singles; he went on to reach the quarterfinals. He was also, with Petr Korda, the runner-up in the French Open men's doubles. At that year's Wimbledon, Ivanišević reached the semifinals, where he lost to Becker in four sets. Ivanišević also won his first tour singles title in 1990 at Stuttgart and helped Yugoslavia win the World Team Cup. He played in eight ties for Yugoslavia in the Davis Cup before quitting the team after the Croatian declaration of independence in 1991. Yugoslavia lost its subsequent tie against France 5–0.

Ivanišević quickly became known on the tour for his strong, attacking style of play and for an extremely powerful serve. For several years, he had more aces than anyone else on the tour. He was also known for occasional on-court temper tantrums—usually directed towards himself—and the volatility of the standard of his play. Ivanišević received death threats at the 1992 Australian Men's Hardcourt Championships. He went on to win the tournament.

In 1992, Ivanišević surged his way into his first Wimbledon singles final, having defeated Ivan Lendl, Stefan Edberg, and Pete Sampras in succession. Ivanišević's four set semifinal victory over Sampras was particularly impressive, with Ivanišević serving 36 aces and not even facing a break point in the entire match. In the final, Ivanišević faced Andre Agassi and was heavily favored to win; with both players attempting to win their first Grand Slam title. Agassi eventually won in five sets. In the fifth set, Ivanišević had a break point on Agassi's serve at 3–3, but failed to convert it. In the final game of the match, Ivanišević served 2 double faults to start the game, even though he had only served 5 double faults in the entire match before that. Ivanišević's ace count for the tournament (206) was the highest in Wimbledon history at the time, until Ivanišević beat his own record in 2001 with 213 aces. Ivanišević served 37 aces in the 1992 Wimbledon final against Agassi, while Agassi had 37 aces in the entire tournament. Later that summer at the Olympic Games in Barcelona, Ivanišević won bronze medals in both singles and doubles representing Croatia, a state that had only recently declared independence; he also served as flagbearer for the Croatian team at the opening ceremony. In order to earn his single bronze medal, he won four consecutive 5-sets matches. He also won four singles titles that year.

Ivanišević reached the Wimbledon final for the second time in 1994, where he was defeated by defending-champion Pete Sampras in straight sets. Ivanišević reached his career-high singles ranking of world No. 2 in July that year.

Ivanišević played football for the Croatian team Hajduk Split in 2001. A supporter of English team West Bromwich Albion, he became a fan after the Midland club's escape from Premiership relegation in 2005. He wore an Albion shirt whilst warming up prior to the 2006 BlackRock Masters final and finally watched his first match in December 2011, as West Bromwich Albion played Queens Park Rangers at Loftus Road.

Ivanišević also participated in an exhibition match of the Croatian national team of 1998 versus the International football stars on 7 October 2002 in Zagreb. It was the last career match of Croatian midfielder and team captain Zvonimir Boban. Ivanišević scored the goal for 1–1 (the game ended 2–1 for the International stars).

Ivanisevic was a serve and volleyer and played a fast, aggressive game suited to grass courts. He was known for his powerful and accurate left-handed serve, particularly his first serve that was clutch, and is widely considered one of the most dominant servers in the history of tennis. He often won entire games without the ball being returned.

Like many serve-and-volleyers, Ivanisevic's return game and defence was weaker due to his powerful but inconsistent groundstrokes. On the backhand side, he would often use the slice instead of hitting with top-spin and use the chip-and-charge tactic to come to the net.

1990 – World Team Cup winner with Yugoslavia

1 Held as Stockholm Masters until 1994, Stuttgart Masters from 1995 to 2001.

1 Held as Stockholm Masters until 1994, Stuttgart Masters from 1995 to 2001.

The only male player to win a Grand Slam title as a wild card. He achieved this at Wimbledon in 2001.

Most aces by any player in a single season 1991 to present (1,477 in 1996).

Right after retiring from the ATP Tour in 2004, Ivanišević started playing on the ATP Champions Tour (seniors' circuit).

In 2005, he was a member of the Croatian team for the Davis Cup final against Slovakia in Bratislava, although he did not play. Croatia won the final 3–2. Ivanišević received a winner's medal and his name was engraved on the trophy along with Mario Ančić, Ivo Karlović, Ivan Ljubičić and team captain Nikola Pilić.

In June 2006, he performed in the Calderstones Park tournament in Liverpool. In November of the same year, Ivanišević won the Merrill Lynch Tour of Champions tournament in Frankfurt, defeating John McEnroe 7–6(12), 7–6(1).

In 2007, Roger Federer, seeking his 5th consecutive Wimbledon title against Rafael Nadal in the final, practiced with Ivanišević. Federer said the practice session helped him against Nadal.

As of 2019, Ivanišević still takes part in tournaments on the seniors' circuit, and he is currently coaching Novak Djokovic.

Retiring in 2004 also allowed thirty-three-year-old Ivanišević to devote more attention to investing in the real estate and construction industries, which he had already been involved with since 1998, conducting the activities through the simultaneously registered Sport Line limited liability company based in Split, Croatia. Due to Ivanišević still being an active tennis player at the time of the venture's launch, most of the company's initial day-to-day business was handled by his father Srdjan. Their main activity was an ambitious undertaking—construction of a 65-unit luxury apartment building in the Split neighbourhood of Firule. Named "Lazarica 2", the building's construction was supposed to start in November 1998 and finish by late 2000. After many delays, the project finally completed in 2003, but dragged the company into debt due to many unsold units.

News of Ivanišević's financial problems first appeared in the summer of 2005 after he talked about it in an interview with Globus newsmagazine, revealing Lazarica 2 to be a "failed project", as well as admitting to being "devoured by sharks" after hastily getting into investments that in hindsight he viewed as "jumping overnight from kindergarten to university". Later that year, he also talked to the Daily Telegraph about "losing substantial amount of money" in some of his investments.

By September 2006, after months of speculation, Ivanišević joined a group of investors—including active AC Milan footballer Dario Šimić, retired basketball player Ivica Žurić as well as businessmen Marijan Šarić, Mate Šarić, and Batheja Pramod—for a joint HRK93 million (~€12.5 million) investment into the added market capitalization of Karlovačka banka. Ivanišević, Šimić, and Žurić invested HRK19 million (~€2.5 million) each, thus each obtaining 9% ownership stake in the bank.

Ivanišević's finances became news again in August 2010 after reports of his Sunseeker Predator 72 motor yacht being repossessed by Hypo Leasing Kroatien, a subsidiary of Hypo Alpe Adria Bank due to reportedly a full year of Ivanišević failing to meet his €12,000 monthly lease payments. Ivanišević would deny this, saying that the yacht was returned due to mechanical defect.

On 31 January 2013, after accumulating debts of HRK5.7 million (~€752,000), Ivanišević's company Sport Line filed for bankruptcy settlement proceedings before the Croatian Trade Court. Among the list of entities the company reportedly owed money to is the Croatian government in the amount of HRK1.1 million (~€145,000). Additionally, even his real estate business, conducted through another limited liability company, Goran promocije, was in trouble, with its account blocked for over a year with debts of HRK1.14 million. According to Croatian media reports, as of his company's 2013 bankruptcy proceedings, most of Ivanišević's assets—such as his two Zagreb apartments, his ownership stake in Karlovačka banka, and his 40,000 m2 of land in Duilovo—were safe from being sold off or liquidated as he had already signed them over to either his wife Tatjana Dragović (the Zagreb apartments and bank stake) or his mother Gorana Ivanišević (the plot of land).

In August 2005 Ivanišević got voted to be one of four vice-presidents of the Croatian Olympic Committee (HOO) working under president Zlatko Mateša.

In June 2013, in the wake of Marin Čilić's doping-related nine-month suspension that came into effect in the middle of his 2013 Wimbledon participation, the player reached out to his compatriot Ivanišević to become his new coach. Čilić's suspension was eventually reduced to 4 months.

Čilić won the 2014 US Open under Ivanišević's guidance. The two split after the 2016 Wimbledon where Čilić lost a tough five-set quarterfinal match to Roger Federer having initially been up 2-sets-to-none.

Only weeks after Ivanišević's split with Čilić, Tomáš Berdych announced on 8 August 2016 via social media that Ivanišević will begin coaching him, starting at 2016 Western & Southern Open.

In early June 2017, immediately after Berdych's second round upset loss to unseeded Karen Khachanov at the 2017 French Open, the 14th-ranked ATP player Berdych fired his coach Ivanišević.

In February 2018, the 31st-ranked ATP player and 2016 Wimbledon finalist Milos Raonic—having had his 2017 season marked by prolonged layoffs due to wrist and knee injury issues in addition to just coming off being eliminated from the Australian Open in a first round upset to unseeded Lukáš Lacko—looked to hire a new coach by holding separate trials with Jonas Björkman during the Delray Beach Open and Ivanišević during the Indian Wells Masters. Soon after, having made the semifinals at Indian Wells, Raonic hired Ivanišević.

Ivanišević coached Raonic until just before the 2019 Indian Wells Masters, when Raonic announced that he would be getting a new coach Fabrice Santoro. In a December 2019 interview, ten months removed from his collaboration with Raonic, Ivanišević (now coaching Novak Djokovic) described the experience of coaching Raonic as being "filled with struggles due to lack of proper communication", likening it to "talking to a wall" and adding that Raonic should have gotten a psychiatrist instead of a coach.

On 30 June 2019, Novak Djokovic confirmed that he had added Ivanišević to his coaching team. Working alongside Djokovic's existing coach Marian Vajda, Ivanišević's first order of business was the 2019 Wimbledon. However, due to a previously agreed commitment—exhibition match versus Goran Prpić ahead of the 2019 Croatia Open in Umag—he could be with Djokovic at Wimbledon for only the first week of the tournament, thus missing Djokovic's epic final win versus Roger Federer. Discussing his initial week-long interaction with Djokovic, Ivanišević praised the player's "perfectionism", stating to have felt "wanted as a coach for the first time in a long time" while simultaneously experiencing the "pleasure of coaching an individual that asks questions and actually listens to and processes what you have to say" and adding that he has "tragically had a more meaningful and worthwhile communication with Djokovic in an hour than with Raonic in the entire year".

On 27 March 2024, Novak Djokovic announced their separation.

On 1 November 2024, Elena Rybakina confirmed that she had hired Ivanišević as her new coach, with the partnership set to begin with the 2025 WTA Tour.

After the Australian Open 2025, late January of the same year, he announced that he has ended his coaching stint with world number six Elena Rybakina after her Australian Open exit and its trial period.

In May 2025 it was announced that Ivanisevic was hired as coach by Stefanos Tsitsipas. The partnership ended in July 2025 after just two months, following public criticism from Ivanišević regarding Tsitsipas's fitness and preparation levels after the Greek player's first-round retirement at Wimbledon due to injury.

During the early 1990s, several years after turning professional, young tennis player Ivanišević began dating the Croatian model and 1990 Queen of the World beauty pageant winner Daniela Mihalić, two years his senior. The couple soon moved in together, residing in his properties in both Split and Monte Carlo. The relationship ended in the mid-1990s after five years together; following the split, Mihalić would go on to marry football coach Nenad Gračan.

In 1998, 27-year-old Ivanišević began dating 17-year-old Serbian-Croatian model Tatjana Dragović after reportedly seeing her on the cover of the Cosmopolitan magazine's September 1996 edition and subsequently obtaining her phone number by contacting her New York City-based modeling agency, Elite. Ivanišević married Dragović in 2009 and they have two children, Amber Maria and Emanuel. Their official divorce proceedings, reportedly initiated by Dragović, began in April 2013.

Throughout 2007, ahead of the 2007 Croatian parliamentary election, retired tennis player Ivanišević participated in promoting the ruling Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) of incumbent Prime Minister Ivo Sanader via personal appearances at campaign stops and in television ads.

At a late June 2007 rally at the Dražen Petrović Basketball Hall, where he arrived with his pregnant girlfriend Tatjana Dragović, Ivanišević addressed the crowd using tennis analogies: "Over the previous 4 years, we [Croatia led by Sanader and the HDZ] learned the backhand, forehand, and baseline play; and in the last 10 years we've mastered the serve; now, we have to learn net play by being accepted into the European Union". Also endorsing the HDZ on this campaign trail were other prominent Croatian sporting figures such as retired basketball star Dino Rađa, active footballers Niko Kovač and Tomislav Butina, retired water polo player Zdeslav Vrdoljak, retired basketball players Franjo Arapović and Stojko Vranković, handball coach Lino Červar, retired handballer Slavko Goluža, football administrators Zdravko and Zoran Mamić, boxer Stipe Drviš, active water polo players Teo Đogaš, Mile Smodlaka, and Josip Pavić, and active handballers Ivano Balić, Petar Metličić, and Renato Sulić.

Weeks prior to the election, the HDZ released a number of television ads with the sporting figures endorsing the party. One such ad features Ivanišević delivering a tennis pun into the camera by stating that he "trusts Sanader and his aces". In March 2008, months following the election that the HDZ had won, responding to an interview question about his motivation to endorse the HDZ, Ivanišević claimed to have been "supporting PM Sanader, not the HDZ", adding that he believes in Sanader.

Wimbledon 2001 Final: Rafter Vs Ivanišević Standing Room Only, DVD Release Date: 30 October 2007, Run Time: 195 minutes, ASIN: B000V02CT6.