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 Photographer: Susan Mullane
Date: 07 Mar 2005 |  Photographer: Susan Mullane
Date: 07 Mar 2005 |  Photographer: Susan Mullane
Date: 05 Mar 2005 |  Photographer: Susan Mullane
Date: 05 Mar 2005 |  Photographer: Susan Mullane
Date: 03 Mar 2005 |  Photographer: Paul Zimmer
Date: 04 Dec 2005 |  Photographer: Susan Mullane
Date: 06 Mar 2005 |
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| 12 Jun 2009 - Chris Bowers | |
| Croatia’s greatest moment |
One of the biggest Davis Cup upsets of the decade is revisited in the forthcoming quarterfinal round when the USA and Croatia do battle in Porec. It’s the first time the two nations have met since March 2005, when America’s ‘dream team’ was humbled in the first round on home soil by an unfancied two-man line-up from Croatia.
Talk to Ivan Ljubicic, the undoubted hero of the tie – and indeed of the 2005 Davis Cup by BNP Paribas year – and you find a man slightly baffled that everyone made such a fuss of his team’s achievement. ‘It wasn’t really a shock,’ he says. ‘We were good players and we knew we could win [against the US]. We only realised how big it was after getting lots of phone calls and seeing the attention in the press.’
In tennis terms Ljubicic was right, and a comment in the hotel bar on the Sunday night by John McEnroe Sr, the father of the US Davis Cup captain Patrick McEnroe, stands in the memory. ‘We lost to the world No 2 behind Federer on this year’s form,’ he said, trying to find some perspective on the most bitter defeat of his son’s reign as captain. Ljubicic had indeed reached three finals in the first two months of the year, losing two of them to Roger Federer in final sets, and Mario Ancic was no mug in singles or doubles. But that wasn’t how it felt that night in US tennis circles.
When the USA beat Belarus in September 2004 to reach that year’s final, and faced an away tie on clay against the Spaniards, all the talk was of persuading the 1999 French Open champion Andre Agassi out of Davis Cup retirement to play in the final. Even Spain’s team leader Carlos Moya wanted it: ‘I hope the US picks Roddick, Agassi and the twins,’ he said after Spain had beaten France in the semis.
Agassi Davis Cup comeback
Agassi declined the overtures of Patrick McEnroe, but agreed to play for the first time in five years when the US was drawn at home to Croatia three months later, and the tie was set for a hard court in Carson, a suburb of Los Angeles. It meant the US paraded its ‘dream team’, and a sign of how confident it was came in a post-draw comment by Agassi. Asked whether he would waive his usual antipathy to playing dead rubbers, given that neither Bryan twin was a natural singles player, Agassi said: ‘I view dead rubbers as a nice problem to have.’ In other words, if it came to a dead rubber, the US would have won.
But Agassi never got going in the opening rubber against Ljubicic. The court, described as ‘rough and high-bouncing’ by the Croat, gave Agassi all sorts of problems, and Ljubicic won in straight sets. When Roddick beat Ancic in four in the second singles, the opening day ended 1-1, but with the Americans still favourites.
That was because Bob & Mike Bryan were unbeaten in five Davis Cup doubles rubbers, and when they had set points in the second set tiebreak to lead by two sets to love, they were powering the home nation to a 2-1 lead. But the Croats sneaked the tiebreak 10-8, and suddenly started playing better and better. For once the Bryans had no answer, and Ancic-Ljubicic won in four to turn the balance of power on its head.
The first reverse singles was the rubber of the weekend. The in-form Ljubicic faced the rested Andy Roddick. Twice Ljubicic led by a set, twice Roddick pinned him back. But with temperatures plummeting on an otherwise beautiful day, Ljubicic proved the stronger in the final set, and broke twice to seal Croatia’s win.
Ljubicic in top form
‘We were more relaxed than them,’ recalls Ljubicic today, ‘because Andre didn’t play well. Andy felt the pressure against me, he knew he had to win. The feeling in our locker room was that it doesn’t matter if I win or not as Mario would have a great chance against Andre, and that’s why I played relaxed throughout the match.’
By the time it came to a dead rubber on Sunday night, it was not a nice problem for the US, and Agassi, who was gracious in warmly congratulating the Croatian team, asked Bob Bryan to step in for him against Roko Karanusic.
Ljubicic is convinced the key to the tie was the overconfidence in the US camp. ‘The American team were favourites,’ he says, ‘but they thought they were bigger favourites than they were, and that’s probably why they lost.’
Roddick, for whom that weekend was the only home tie he has yet lost in the Davis Cup by BNP Paribas, it was a bitter defeat. ‘We had a pretty good look at the draw that year and I think we could have gone all the way. So as they went through the draw, it was pretty tough to watch.’
Croatia’s first Davis Cup title
Croatia went on to beat Romania and Russia at home, but were denied a home final when Slovakia beat Argentina in the semis. That meant a trip to Bratislava, with Ljubicic taking a 9-0 record for the year – all in live rubbers – into the final. Going into the third day he was 11-0, but woke up with a bad neck and did well to take Dominik Hrbaty to five sets, before Ancic beat Michal Mertinak to seal Croatia’s first Davis Cup title.
It will be two very different teams who play in Porec this time. Only Roddick and the Bryans remain from that tie, which was arguably the single most impressive weekend of Ljubicic’s career. And yet his biggest memory was not of tennis but of a bit of American razzmatazz he wasn’t expecting. ‘The crowd were very fair,’ he says, ‘but I was really shocked when I saw dancers between games. I’d never seen that before. I’d played US Open night sessions so I knew how loud it could be, but I’d never seen dancers. It took me about four or five changeovers to not to look at them and to focus on my game!’
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