Goran Ivanisevic is a retired Croatian tennis player and coach, famous for his thunderous left-handed serve and emotional, unpredictable on-court personality. He reached a career-high ATP singles ranking of world No. 2 in 1994 and spent years as a dangerous contender at big tournaments, especially on grass.
Early Life and Rise on Tour
Ivanisevic was born on 13 September 1971 in Split, in the former Yugoslavia — now Croatia. He grew up in a city with a strong sporting culture, and tennis quickly became his dominant passion. His father Srdjan, himself a keen player, was his earliest coach and influence.
He emerged as a highly promising junior before turning professional in 1988 at the age of sixteen. His combination of a huge serve, attacking instincts and natural flair quickly made him a threat on faster surfaces, and he climbed the ATP rankings rapidly through the early 1990s.
By 1992 he had reached his first Wimbledon final, losing to Andre Agassi in five sets, and established himself as one of the most feared servers in the game. Throughout the decade he picked up titles on hard courts, grass, clay and carpet, proving he was far more than just a one-dimensional serve-bot.
Playing Style and Personality
Ivanisevic's game was centred on a massive left-handed serve that produced extraordinary numbers of aces and set up simple volleys at the net. On grass especially, he often followed his delivery straight to the net, where his reactions and hands made him formidable at close quarters. His flat groundstrokes allowed him to take the ball early and rush opponents before they could settle.
He didn't just serve hard — he served perfectly, placing the ball into corners where it barely left the ground on a grass court. Returning Goran's serve felt genuinely impossible on a bad day.
What elevated him into a cult figure, however, was his volatile personality and sense of theatre on court. He could switch between sublime shot-making and spectacular self-destruction in the space of a few games. He argued with himself, threw rackets, talked to the crowd, celebrated wildly and visibly suffered — making his matches unforgettable entertainment even when he was losing.
He also developed a superstition about splitting himself into three personalities — "Good Goran", "Bad Goran" and "Emergency Goran" — which became part of his legend and showed both his creativity and his fragility under pressure.
The Serve
One of the most powerful lefty serves ever. Flat, wide deliveries on grass gave opponents almost no reaction time.
Aggression
Attacked relentlessly from the first point. Short rallies, big winners and constant pressure on the receiver.
Personality
Three personalities on court: "Good Goran", "Bad Goran" and "Emergency Goran". Never a dull match.
Grass Mastery
Wimbledon finalist four times. The surface perfectly suited his serve-and-volley style and fast-twitch instincts.
Major Achievements
Over his career, Ivanisevic won 22 ATP Tour-level singles titles and 9 doubles titles, compiling a singles win-loss record of 599 wins and 333 losses. He was runner-up in the Wimbledon men's singles final three times in the 1990s — in 1992, 1994 and 1998 — before finally triumphing there in 2001 as a wildcard, ranked just No. 125 in the world.
He also won two bronze medals at the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona, in singles and doubles, representing Croatia. These Olympic results underlined his importance to Croatian tennis at a formative moment in the country's sporting history.
Coaching Career and Hall of Fame
After retiring from the ATP Tour, Ivanisevic found a second calling as a coach. He worked with Croatian star Marin Cilic, helping him win the 2014 US Open, before taking on an even more prominent role as part of Novak Djokovic's coaching team from 2019. With Goran involved, Djokovic went on to win multiple Grand Slam titles and extend his position as the world's best player.
The coaching partnership brought Ivanisevic back to Wimbledon's Centre Court as a winner — this time watching from the players' box rather than serving from the baseline.
In 2020, Goran Ivanisevic was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, Rhode Island, cementing his place among the sport's greats. His legacy is built not just on titles, but on the extraordinary emotional journey he provided across fifteen years at the top of professional tennis, and the once-in-a-lifetime Wimbledon story he created in 2001.