1

C R O A T I A S P E C I A LC

omm

unic

atio

n an

d E

xter

nal R

elat

ions

Dep

artm

ent

August 2005

Invincible!ROGER FEDERER WINS HIS THIRD CONSECUTIVE WIMBLEDON

AND IS CONFIRMED THE TRUE MASTER OF THE CIRCUIT, SET TO BECOME THE GREATEST TENNIS PLAYER OF ALL TIMES

ROGER FEDERER WINS HIS THIRD CONSECUTIVE WIMBLEDON AND IS CONFIRMED THE TRUE MASTER OF THE CIRCUIT, SET TO

BECOME THE GREATEST TENNIS PLAYER OF ALL TIMES

2

On the eve of the last Major in New York, Roger Federer confirms he’s the toughest in the tournaments that count. Meanwhile, Nadal, Safin, Roddick and Hewitt jostle for the other two podium positions.

Grand Slam Ranking

Guga Kuerten is back in the Brazilian Davis Cup team. In a packed stadium in his own Florianopolis, Kuerten led his country to an easy victory over the Dutch Antilles Rafael Nadal won his 7th clay title this season at Bastad and his 29th consecutive match win on clay.

Post scriptum

One man show. That’s how the season promi-sed to unfold. Many pre-dicted that Roger Fe-derer would join Donald Budge and Rod Laver as

the only players capable of completing the Grand Slam. But things are turning out differently, as we saw immediately in January when the good Roger had to bow out to that bizarre phenomenon by the name of Marat Safin, in what is still the best game of the year so far. Then our Swiss ace found himself up against another opponent of the first order, Ra-fael Nadal, who got the measure of him in Miami and then beat him in the semi-final on his way to winning the French Open at Roland Garros. But as soon as play was back on grass, Federer restored the status quo. With his third consecutive Wimbledon, he’s opened

Mr Slam

up the gap again in the INDESIT ATP 2005 Race and also in the Grand Slam ranking. After three slams, he’s the only player this season to have made the semi-finals each time and is thus way ahead of his opponents.There are four players fighting for the no. 2 spot and they’re currently headed by Marat Safin, who triumphed in the Australian Open and then lost his way, partly through character, partly throu-gh a knee injury which had to be ope-rated straight after Wimbledon. Hard on his heels come Rafael Nadal and Andy Roddick on equal points. Of the Andy Roddick on equal points. Of the Andy Roddicktwo, the Spaniard has the edge, being the only one with a positive record on court against Federer (two wins to one) and definitely the new player of the sea-son, to the extent that the Americans have chosen him as the player-image of the next US Open. Last in the group

is Lleyton Hewitt, who might well have been leading it. The Australian is seen by Federer as his most dangerous rival (maybe because Roger doesn’t want to raise Nadal’s hopes too much) and in fact Hewitt could have been no. 2 in the Grand Slam Ranking if injury ha-dn’t kept away from the clay courts of Roland Garros. The long summer on American cement (where two Masters Series and the last Slam will be played) will be the unforgiving indicator of how the season will end, even though the top spot is already assured. Federer in fact has already secured himself a place at the year-end Masters Cup tournament in Shanghai: no one has ever done this so long in advance.So the circuit is split in three, with Fe-derer on top, Safin, Nadal, Hewitt and Roddick in the middle and all the rest behind. In the second half of the Top

Roger Federer

3

Grand Slam Ranking

At Wimbledon Roger Federer wore shoes with the rare 24 carat gold “microprisms” used in the Golden Shoes that Michael Johnson wore when he won the 400 metres gold at the Sydney Olympics The Wimbledon specials broadcast by the American ESPN2 network set up three years ago enjoyed record audiences

Mr Slam

All time greats

Players’ careers are judged by their Grand Slam tournament results. Here’s who’s recorded the best results so far in the Open Era (1968). Roger Federer is currently way behind at 1526 but he’s obviously got many years of play left in which to go for the summit of this peak as well. He’ll have to maintain the winning streak he’s had in the last two years for another six years. No mean task (Connors played and won till 40) but the Swiss champion is getting us used to great things.

If he’d held out another couple of years, he may have outdone everyone. But winning his last US Open when everyone reckoned he was finished was already a huge achievement. His seven Wimbledon titles and 14 Slams are still an unbeaten record.

Pete Sampras (USA)

3 4,406In 2nd place just a handful of points behind, he started winning late but then couldn’t stop. He regrets never having won at Wimbledon, the tournament he always wanted to win the most.

In constant rivalry with Becker, he just loses out to him in this particular standing. He won everywhere except Roland Garros, where in 1989 he lost a final he seemed to have in the bag, against Michael Chang. His bitterest regret.

Stefan Edberg (Swe)

6 3,335

He didn’t have a great finale to his career, which is a shame after such a brilliant start. This enfant prodige had all Germany at his feet, together with Steffi Graf.

If he hadn’t retired at 26 he would be at the top of this ranking. He has an average 122 points per tournament, ahead of Connors with only 86! He’s won Paris six times and Wimbledon five but he tired too soon.

Bjorn Borg (Swe)

7 3,317

Boris Becker (Ger)

In a ranking based on pure talent, he’d be much higher up. His problem was he always played extraordinary tennis at Wimbledon and the US Open but never enough on the clay courts in Paris.

John McEnroe (USA)

8 3,304Despite his technical limitations, he achieved truly extraordinary results. In 1988 he won three quarters of a Grand Slam; only the grass at Wimbledon eluded him. With Borg he was the strongest player of all time after four hours play.

Mats Wilander (Swe)

9 2,840

5

His bête noir was always Bjorn Borg. They played similar tennis but the Swedish bear just seemed to do everything a shade better. He won on clay in Paris and on grass in Australia and his single handed backhand created a new school.

Guillermo Vilas (Arg)

10 2,426

3,465The highest placed player still in action, although the impression is he won’t be for much longer. He’ll find it very difficult to overtake his arch rival Pete Sampras, unless injuries stop nagging him.

Andre Agassi (USA)

4 4,183Ivan Lendl (Czech Rep.)

2 4,577He certainly deserves the title for longevity, having played winning tennis till he was 40. He clashed with other great names like Borg, McEnroe, Lendl, Becker, Agassi and so on and always came through with style.

Jimmy Connors (USA)

1 4,999

10 of the Grand Slam Ranking we have the big surprises of 2005, above all the Russian Nikolay Davydenko and the Argentinean Mariano Puerta. Da-vydenko has been in dazzling form sin-ce he changed racquet (Guillermo Co-ria lent him one by chance). He reached the semi-final in the Masters Series in Hamburg and Roland Garros and it was only injury that stopped him doing bet-ter on grass too. If he survives physi-cally, he’ll be in with a fighting chance of making it into the Masters Cup, given a versatility that enables him to cope well on all surfaces. Puerta is a diffe-rent case, for he’s not at all happy off clay and the clay season is practically over, at least in terms of the top tour-naments. However, the Paris final is the Argentinean’s career best, to date, and was completely unexpected (he wasn’t even in the world’s top hundred).

Rafael Nadal

4

Post scriptum

Grand Slam Ranking

There are currently two charity bracelets promoted by tennis players: Andy Roddick’s blue “No Compromise” and Tim Henman’s green “Give and Get”; they can still be obtained from www.andyroddick.com and at French Connection stores in London (www.frenchconnection.co.uk)

PlayerGrand Slam

titles1 Pete Sampras (USA) 142 Roy Emerson (Aus) 123 Bjorn Borg (Swe) 114 Rod Laver (Aus) 115 Bill Tilden (USA) 106 Fred Perry (UK) 86 Andre Agassi (USA) 86 Jimmy Connors (USA) 86 Ken Rosewall (Aus) 86 Ivan Lendl (Czech Rep) 8

Roger Federer (Swi) 5

Pete Sampras holds the most important record though – the highest number of Grand Slam title won. Federer is ready to mount a challenge. It’s his key objective along with the (more complex) one of winning the Grand Slam.

Catching up with Pete

Pos. Player AO RG WB TOT*

1 Roger Federer SF SF W 380

2 Marat Safin W 4T 3T 245

3 Rafael Nadal 4T W 2T 237

4 Andy Roddick SF 2T F 237

5 Lleyton Hewitt F - SF 230

6 Nikolay Daydenko QF SF 2T 147

7 Mariano Puerta - F 1T 141

8 David Nalbandian QF 4T QF 130

9 Thomas Johansson 4T 2T SF 121

10 Sebastien Grosjean 2T 4T QF 87

The magnificent 10

The other three in the Top 10 all have great experience and are returning to high le-vel play: the Argentinean David Nalban-dian, the Swedish Thomas Johanssonand the French Sebastien Grosjean, who all did well at Wimbledon.And there’s no lack of competition ou-tside the top 10. Even though the top five players are fairly confident and look unapproachable, the rest aren’t really so far behind. But who has the best chan-ce closing the gap? One name who will soon be stable in the Top 10 and who need envy no one in terms of talent is the 19 year old French Richard Gasquet. This year he’s finally come out among the greats and on the eve of Wimbledon won his first ATP title. If he continues to make progress in the second half of the year, the number eight slot should be well within reach. The long awai-ted contest with Rafael Nadal, also 18, could well start this year. Nor should we forget the Chilean Fernando Gonzalez, in fine form this year, and obviously An-dre Agassi, provided he stays clear of injury. And finally, another player with excellent pedigree, Juan Carlos Ferrero, former world no. 1 and Roland Garros winner. After a year lost through heal-th problems, Ferrero is coming back to levels more in keeping with his talent. If he can perform in the tournaments that count, he still has a chance of making the Top 8 in Shanghai.

Marat Safin

5

Roger Federer’s Wimbledon victory takes his record to 21 consecutive finals wins. The last person to beat him in a final was Jiri Novak, at Gstaad in 2003 The USTA has launched the Us Open Series, a programme of ATP summer tournaments culminating in the 4th Grand Slam in New York at the end of August and whose final will be played on the significant date of 11th September

Special Ranking

INDESIT ATP 2005 Race

Position in INDESIT ATP 2005 Race 1 Position in INDESIT ATP Entry Ranking1

1 Roger Federer (Swi)Age 23 – Race Points 910

58 wins/3 defeats

He dominated Wimbledon, having also won the run-up tournament in Halle. Nadal had drawn alongside in the top spot but the Swiss has now streaked ahead again. The INDESIT ATP 2005 Race looks already tied up at the end of July.1

1 Rafael Nadal (Spa)Age 19 – Race Points 699

54 wins/8 defeats

It was clear that he wouldn’t be able to stay the course with King Federer. But he’s still a safe second and the American cement should give him at least a hope of closing the gap with the Swiss.3

3 Andy Roddick (USA)Age 22 – Race Points 436

37 wins/8 defeats

The Wimbledon final redeemed a season that hasn’t been brilliant so far, for an ex number one. But the top two are still way ahead and he’ll have to watch out for Hewitt if he wants to keep his podium place.4

4 Lleyton Hewitt (Aus)Age 24 – Race Points 254

25 wins/5 defeats

Federer sees him as his strongest adversary but the Australian hasn’t won a set of him yet. Perennially at the gates of heaven, he will play to the very end to make it onto the world podium.2

5 Marat Safin (Rus)Age 25 – Race Points 321

24 wins/10 defeats

A series of endless ups and downs. A final at Halle, followed by an early exit from Wimbledon. A knee injury has kept him off court for weeks but his victory in Australia qualifies him for the Masters Cup. 5

5 Nikolay Davydenko (Rus)Age 24 - Race Points 321

33 wins/16 defeats

The real surprise this season, at least in terms of consistency of yield. Will he manage to defend his place till the end of the year though? In the meantime, he’s got to no. 5 and is in with a chance of making the Masters Cup in Shanghai.7

7 Guillermo Coria (Arg)Age 23 - Race points 299

35 wins/13 defeats

No grand exploits, as grass isn’t his favourite surface, even though he’s put up an excellent defence. He’ll have to excel on American cement to stay in the Top 8 for his second Masters Cup.15

9 Mariano Puerta (Arg)Age 26 - Race Points 255

23 wins/10 defeats

Still on a high after his final in Paris, but for how long. What’s certain is that away from his clay courts, he’s rather out of his depth. He’ll try and exploit the few clay events left to stay in the top 10.12

8 Gaston Gaudio (Arg)Age 26 – Race Points 282

38 wins/11 defeats

Excellent consistency and yield on clay, if he could only chalk up some decent results on grass too, he’d be a permanent Top Tenner. But as things are, he’ll be risking his position this summer in America.13

10 David Ferrer (Spa)Age 23 – Race Points 225

30 wins/17 defeats

So far, a brilliant season but alarm signals are already sounding. If he wants to stay in the Top 10, he’ll have to go on performing as well as in the first half of the season, which won’t be at all easy.20

Athlete sportpower rank

pay rank

1 Tiger Woods golf 2 42 O’Neal basketball 5 263 Lance Armstrong cycling 15 414 Michael Jordan basketball 16 275 Michael Schumacher motor racing 17 86 Kobe Bryant basketball 19 397 David Beckham football 26 288 Michael Vick football USA 33 199 Derek Jeter baseball 38 50

10 Jeff Gordon motor racing 46 5316 Andre Agassi tennis 59 49

Agassi powerAndre Agassi is sill the best paid tennis player in the world according to the prestigious Ame-rican magazine Forbes, a specialist in these rankings. And not only. Agassi is also in the Top 100 highest paid and most influential sports ce-lebrities. He’s 49th in the Pay Rank and 59th in the Power Rank. He’s also no. 23 in the Press Rank, showing how much he’s appreciated by the world’s press as well. Here are the top 10 athletes in the general Celebrity 100.

At nearly half way through the season, here are the under 20 players in the Indesit ATP 2005 Race Top 100. The new entry is the 18 year old Serb Novak Djokovic.

Under-21 ranking

Spanish Rafael Nadal leads in all four of the servi-ce return statistics, from points won receiving a 1st and 2nd serve, games won receiving serve and break points converted, thus confirming his killer instinct for exploiting even the slightest chances he gets.

AndreAgassi

RichardGasquet Winning service

returns

RafaelNadal

Pos. Race Player Year2 Rafael Nadal 1986

12 Richard Gasquet 1986

42 Tomas Berdych 1985

45 Stanislas Wawrinka 1985

68 Gael Monfils 1986

74 Nicolas Almagro 1985

94 Marcos Baghdatis 1985

96 Novak Djokovic 1987

Player Naz% break points

convertedmatchs played

1 Rafael Nadal Spain 49 622 Xavier Malisse Belgium 48 263 David Ferrer Spain 47 484 David Nalbandian Argentina 47 335 Nicolas Kiefer Germany 47 305 Richard Gasquet France 47 317 Christophe Rochus Belgium 47 287 Agustin Calleri Argentina 47 289 Potito Starace Italy 47 24

10 Roger Federer Switzerland 46 61

6

What’s the diffe-rence between a pair and a cou-ple? Burton and Taylor and Tar-zan and Jane are

famous screen couples. But tennis fans are more interested in doubles pairs, such as Newcombe-Roche, Fleming-McEnroe, then the Woo-dies, down to today’s Bryans. But though doubles is still played a lot in clubs, it’s lost a lot of its appeal in the professional circuit. Which is the fault of singles, which is get-ting tougher and tougher, requiring perfect physical and mental pre-paration. Playing two games in a week is just too demanding, so top players are abandoning doubles en masse, thus robbing the game of its “pro-” appeal. The ATP is trying to staunch this haemorrhage and has decided to introduce some modifications to the rules to make the game more fun to watch. Let’s have a look at them.The most significant ones regards scoring. Sets will now be won by the first to reach five instead of six ga-mes, with a tie-break being played

on 4-4. Further, at deuce there will be a single decider (ie. no more advantage points) with the player receiving choosing which side of the court to takes the serve on.These two radical changes will help shorten matches and above all make it easier to estimate their length with more precision. This will make it simpler for organizers to include doubles matches in the calendars of major courts, and with the crucial presence of TV. All this will provide very important promo-tion for doubles tennis and hopeful-ly restore it to its former glory.The changes were suggested af-ter a survey was carried out by the Research & Development Dou-bles Project Team co-ordinated by Horst Klosterkemper, ATP Europe and Player Relations President. The survey looked at four targets: fans, players, media and tournament or-ganizers. Equal numbers of singles and doubles players were inter-viewed and 4,837 fans helped with the survey by replying on line (ATP-tennis.com). “All the respondents in our target groups thought that doubles was an important part of

our sport. But also that something had to be done to relaunch it. In particular, the top singles players said they’d be more willing to play doubles if matches were shortened to 90 minutes at the most. The new rules not only meet these needs. We’ve also found a formula to make matches more exciting”.Rafael Nadal, who’s played dou-bles in around half of his tourna-ments this year, said he was sati-sfied with the ATP’s measures. “I’m sure that a lot of other top players will decide to play doubles after these changes”.Now it’s a question of time. The ATP has done its utmost to satisfy eve-ryone’s needs and created an easier and more entertaining system. After all, it’s clear that if the world’s best players ignore the sport, it’s going to be difficult to make it more ap-pealing. Even though young players are keen, as shown by Nadal and Federer who have also been suc-cessful in doubles this year. Further, doubles tennis is obviously the es-sence of the Davis Cup, which con-tinues to enjoy prestige and which major champions have always felt inspired by.The aim will have been achieved anyway if top players start playing in doubles more often.

New rules

Post scriptum

Marat Safin has completed re-education of his knee following his operation at the Isokinetic centre in Bologna At Bastad, Rafael Nadal and Tomas Berdych staged the first final between “teenagers” since 1999, when Lleyton Hewiit and Xavier Malisse met at Delray Beach

Doubles rules are being altered to make tournaments more entertaining and attract the public the game used to have and still deserves. Here’s how.

W

Worthdouble

7

WWhen I arrived at Wim-bledon, I had no inten-tion of retiring. On the contrary, I was hoping to win my 10th title. But I lost straightaway! And

that’s how I realized it was time to give up. It was the best place to do it”.

“I’m sorry I didn’t play in the Davis Cup again-st Argentina but it was a decision that had to be taken on the spot and I don’t want to go back on it. When you retire, it should be for good. Anyway, I’m sure my companions will be able to look after themselves in years to come without me”.

“Fleming says the best doubles pair is John McEnroe with anyone else? Not with anyone else, I think. Maybe we could say that the best doubles pair never actually played together. The tops would have been me on the right and John McEnroe on the left”.

“It’s hard to say which was the sweetest victory when you’ve won so many tourna-ments. Maybe the first Wimbledon success... In Australia, Wimbledon’s considered the

most important tournament in the world and Australia’s best doubles pairs have won there. Since then, me and Woodforde have made in-credible progress”.

“You become symbiotic with your partner. I’ve spent more time with Woodforde may-be than with my wife! I got on well with suc-cessive partners too but it’s obviously the Woodies that people will remember”.

“Playing doubles so constantly didn’t compromise my singles results. On the contrary. In singles I achieved the best results my talent would allow for. Playing doubles enabled me to improve certain aspects of my game. Playing a final on the Centre Court at Wimbledon is an extraor-dinary mental experience that helps you in singles, in tennis in general and even in everyday life. They’re strong emotions that help to mature”.

“Something certainly has to be done to make doubles attractive for the general public again. It’s fundamentally important that tournament organizers and players talk more often about solutions to the

problem acceptable to both sides. I’m leaving the scene just when big changes are in the offing, ones that will hopefully benefit doubles tournaments”.

“It’s a pity so many players don’t take part in doubles tournaments. They say there are fewer and fewer serve & volley players and that this is because people are no longer used to or confident about going up to the net. If there was more doubles play though, that problem would be sorted out in no time”.

“Lleyton Hewitt is the “meanest” player on the circuit. I don’t know anyone who wouldn’t like a shot of his “meanness” when they go on court”.

“The greatest unrealized talent in Australian tennis is still Mark Philippoussis. If he didn’t get injured so often and had trained better, he would undoubtedly have won some Slam ti-tles and could have tried for top seed”.

“You have the impression of ha-ving to perform some extraor-dinary feat to manage to beat them” Mark Knowles on the Woodies.

“One big regret we have? Not having had the chance to play against the Woo-dies. That would have been great”. Bryan brothers.

“What will I do in the future? I want to stay in tennis. We Australians usually end up as TV comentators. Woodforde’s already there. We could relaunch the Woodies.... on televsion”.

Lleyton Hewitt married actress Bec Cartwright, who is expecting a baby; there were 120 guests Big success for “The Agassi Story” by father Mike Agassi, currently on sale in 14 countries, mainly in Asia and above all China The ATP 2006 calendar is now available at www.atptennis.com

Worth

Personality

A legendary doubles player who’s won 16 Grand Slam titles and 83 ATP titles, mostly with Mark Woodforde, the other famous Woodie. He played his last match at Wimbledon just before announcing his definitive retirement.

Woodbridge Todd double

8

Till a few years ago, if you said “tennis” in Croatia, Tsaid “tennis” in Croatia, Tpeople thought of Goran Ivanisevic, a talent with few equals but at the T few equals but at the Tsame time a reputation Tsame time a reputation T

for craziness that was fully deserved. Everyone else was mere background – goods players, promising talents, a few surprises now and again. But nothing really out of the ordinary. Well, Ivanisevic has gone (in terms of tennis) and a void in his absence did not form, on the contrary, an excellent school of worthy heirs has budded.The most outstanding is Mario An-cic, who really ought to be a per-manent fixture in the Top 10. Born in Spalato, in a street that’s since

be re-named “Champions Street”, given that Ivanisevic and before him Zeliko Franulovic were all born within a few metres of one another. He grew up with the legend of Iva-nisevic in his mind and dreamt of repeating the Wimbledon success that earned Goran a place in tennis history. “He helped me tremendou-sly, always encouraging and advi-sing me. And then his Wimbledon victory. I was one of the thousands of people waiting for him on his re-turn. That extraordinary event has given me a belief that I too can do something like that”. He came close last year when he reached the semi-final, where he went down fighting to Andy Roddick. This year he didn’t

get so close, being soundly beaten by Feliciano Lopez (“the worst game I’ve played for ages”). Mario holds an enviable record though, being the last person to have beaten Federer on grass, at Wimbledon in 2002.But Ancic is just the tip of an ice-berg, albeit the youngest (and most promising) of the team. He has other strong players who will sup-port him in the struggle for the co-veted Davis Cup, the ultimate goal of the season for Croatian players.Over and above the Slam, ATP and Masters Series tournaments, Croa-tia is in with real chance of winning the Davis Cup this year. It all star-ted with their extraordinary victory in Carson, near Los Angeles, again-

Dream Team

Post scriptum

Ivo Karlovic is the player with the highest ace per match rate (18). In the ATP total aces ranking he’s 4th, at 450, behind Andy Roddick (564), fellow Croat Mario Ancic (493) and Max Mirnyi (478). The other Croat Ivan Ljubicic is 7th (430)

S P E C I A L

C R O A T I A

T

Having reached the semi-finals, Ivan Ljubicic, Mario Ancic and Ivo Karlovic, the top three Croats, are hoping to make history in this year’s Davis Cup. They have an excellent chance of success

Mario Ancic

9

st a powerful US team. The star was Ivan Ljubicic, whose performance there confirmed the extraordinary form he’s found this year, having rea-ched four ATP finals. He may have lost them but three were against Roger Federer and the fourth again-st an inspired Joachim Johansson. Having closed the gap with the Top 10, Ljubicic really came into his own in the Davis Cup against the Ame-ricans. First he dispensed with An-dre Agassi in three nifty sets and on the last day he won the decisive match against Andy Roddick, who is even more dangerous than usual in the Davis Cup. If you add to the-se two victories the doubles suc-cess against the Bryan brothers.Ancic and Ljubicic then make a pair

that can aim for the very top, espe-cially if they continue to exploit the home factor as they did in their last success against Romania, which put Croatia in the semi-finals, whe-re they’ll play Russia, again on home ground. The only handicap for this Croatian Dream Team is clay, surface on which none of their best players manages to compete at the highest level. But as long as they play in Croa-tia, there won’t be much clay. The Croatians welcome you with indoor super-rapid synthetic courts and an atmosphere like a World Cup football final. Coming through this unscathed is nigh impossible, as the French will find out in spite of their highly com-petitive team and the phenomenal Ri-chard Gasquet, who gets better every

Dream Team

The Three Croat Musketeers are also in the Top 10 for games won on serve: Karlovic (91%) is second only to Roddick (92%); Ancic and Ljubicic are level 7th (86%) Karlovic is in 1st place in terms of points won on first serve (82%) together with Australian Wayne Arthurs Karlovic’s record for games won against serve isn’t so great: only 6%. Next in this ranking are Wayne Arthurs (11%) and Gilles Muller (13%)

G S C R O A T I AGoran Ivanisevic

Ivo Karlovic

10

Post scriptum

There are only three players who’ve won the Umag tournament and gone on to become world no. 1: Carlos Moya, Thomas Muster and Marcelo Rios Carlos Moya has won the ATP Umag tournament four times. Thomas Muster follows with three wins Ivan Ljubicic has won 31 matches this year, making him no. 7 in the matches won ranking

G S C R O A T I AThe Three Musketeers Croatia’s hopes of winning the Davis Cup hang on three players:

Ivan Ljubicic, Mario Ancic and Ivo Karlovic.

Ivan LjubicicAge 26 – 33 wins/15 defeatsINDESIT ATP 2005 Race 13

This is his best season to date. He’s reached four finals, pity three of them were against a certain Roger Federer. Now is not his high point because grass and clay aren’t his favourite surfaces. But back on American cement he’ll be bad news for all contenders.

Mario AncicAge 21 – 31 wins/16 defeatsINDESIT ATP 2005 Race 16

After last year’s Wimbledon semi-final, we were expecting to see him in the world Top 10. But Mario is making heavy weather of it this year, even though he won at ‘s-Hertogenbosch and was a finalist at Scottsdale. But he didn’t get past the 4th round at Wimbledon, which was to have been the key tournament of his season.

Ivo KarlovicAge 26 – 10 wins/15 defeatsINDESIT ATP 2005 Race 70

Ladies & Gentleman, here is the circuit’s most extraordinary serve. No one wants to meet him on fast surfaces because it’s practically impossible to break him. He chalks up an average 18 aces a match and holds serve at a rate of 92%. He’s a little weak on returning serves though and only manages a 6% success rate in breaking.

week. This is Croatia’s big chance, a once in a life time opportunity they have no intention of wasting.Especially now that the top two have found a worthy substitute. Playing three matches in three days isn’t simple and injury is always lu-rking, ready to transform a dream into a nightmare. The new discove-ry is Ivo Karlovic, a player that any talent scout would have signed up for basketball. Over 2 metres 5 cm, he’s the tallest player on the circuit and without a shadow of a doubt the most terrifying serve in the world. On fast surfaces, his matches are impossible to bet on. A tie-break is almost inevitable and when a ma-tch hangs on 2 or 3 points it can go either way, whichever way fortune smiles. Karlovic the classic outsi-der: he’s currently world no. 70 but is quite capable of beating the likes of Lleyton Hewitt (Australia are fa-vourites for the Davis Cup final), as happened on grass at the Queen’s.So those are the three Croatian musketeers going for tennis’s most prestigious trophy, the equivalent of the World Championships in other sports. Croatia is just two short steps away from entering the hi-story books, two steps that Ancic & Co. are perfectly capable of taking. The next step is on 23rd September when the semi-finals will be played. Then Croatia really would be clo-se to achieving one of the greatest sporting achievements in its history.

Ivan Ljubicic

11

And the highest paid Croat? Ivan Ljubicic, who’s collected $577,574 this year in prize money alone. He’s followed by Mario Ancic with $482,270 and Ivo Karlovic with $221,748

AcemanCroatia’s top three players have one thing in common – an extremely punishing serve. Just look at the ace statistics.

Player Nat.Ace

per match1 Ivo Karlovic Cro 182 Wayne Arthurs Aus 15.13 Joachim Johansson Swe 13.54 Andy Roddick USA 13.15 Mark Philippoussis Aus 12.36 Max Mirnyi Bie 127 Mario Ancic Cro 11.28 Lleyton Hewitt Aus 10.29 Greg Rusedski UK 10.2

10 Ivan Ljubicic Cro 9.8

Croatian tennis is not just Ancic & Co. New talents are lining up behind them, and first in the queue is 16 year-old Marin Cilic, who lives in Zagabria and won the junior title at Roland Garros this year, which sent him to no. 2 in the world junior rankings. In the Paris semi-final he beat a certain Andrew Murray, who went on to do well at Wimble-don, in the “adult” category though. The young Croat’s win in Paris showed us exactly what he’s ca-pable of. Behind him there’s Petar Jelenic, 18, from Spalato, no. 9 in the world junior ranking. This year he won the Bonfiglo Cup in Milan (ITF Grade A tournament) and lost in the final, on grass, at Roehampton to... Marin Cilic. The-se are the two best prospects Croatia is relying on to stay at the top end of world tennis.

New talentsyoung Croat’s win in Paris showed us exactly what he’s ca-pable of. Behind him there’s Petar Jelenic, 18, from Spalato, no. 9 in the world junior ranking. This year he won the Bonfiglo Cup in Milan (ITF Grade A tournament) and lost in the final, on grass, at Roehampton to... Marin Cilic. The-se are the two best prospects Croatia is relying on to stay at the top end of world tennis.

Player Nation Born Points

1 Donald Young USA 1989 1437.50

2 Marin Cilic Cro 1989 948.75

3 Leonardo Mayer Arg 1987 946.25

4 Sun-Yong Kim Jr. Kor 1987 921.25

5 Jeremy Chardy Fra 1987 857.50

6 Niels Desein Bel 1987 786.25

7 Robin Haase Neth 1987 755.00

8 Sergei Bubka Ukr 1987 741.25

9 Petar Jelenic Cro 1987 716.25

10 Timothy Neilly USA 1987 667.50

Marin Cilic

Ivo Karlovic

Davis Cup RankingCroatia has it sights on the Da-vis Cup this year after its brilliant away victory against the USA. Its recent wins have sent the country up through the rankings and into the Top 10.

The Croatian team celebrates after having beaten the USA in Davis Cup

National rankingsArgentina still heads the rankings, followed by the USA and Russia. Spain was ousted from the podium in spite of Rafael Nadal.

Nation Points*

1 Argentina 30

2 Russia 37

3 Spain 39

4 USA 40

5 Sweden 62

6 Czech Rep. 79

7 France 102

8 Germany 117

9 Croatia 124

10 Belgium 145

*sum of top three players in the INDESIT ATP Entry Ranking

Ivan Ljubicic

For further information, please contact Chiara Pascarella (Indesit Company, chiara.pascarella@indesitcompany.com, tel. +39 (0)732 662432) or Valentina Broglia (Indesit Company, valentina.broglia@indesitcompany.com, tel. +39 (0)2 30702551)

Nazione punti

1 Spain 27.225

2 Australia 19.000

3 Russia 17.925

4 France 17.375

5 Argentina 13.825

6 USA 13.210

7 Croatia 9.475

8 Slovakia 8.377,5

9 Switzerland 6.359,4

10 Belarus 6.118,1

12

All the Slam tournaments are important but Wimbledon has a special All the Slam tournaments are important but Wimbledon has a special pull. Maybe it’s the grass, or the tradition but for two weeks I can’t think pull. Maybe it’s the grass, or the tradition but for two weeks I can’t think

of anything else. I switch my mobile off, don’t read the papers. All I see is the Cup. How will I manage to lift it up on the first Sunday of July “

“Memorabilia

The Wimbledon Trophy

Roger Federer