When Roger Federer had announced that he was parting ways with his former coach, Stefan Edberg, the tennis world was quite surprised with that decision. (Five things to know about Ivan Ljubicic)
Federer had then gone ahead with a new coach for the 2017 season, the Croation Ivan Ljubicic. This year has been great for Federer as the change in his coaching team has paid great dividends for the Swiss.
A lot of credit for Federer’s big return has been given to Ljubicic and rightly so as he has been fundamental in the game plans and strategy.
So here are the five things to know about Ivan Ljubicic
5) He was the World No 3 in 2006
Ivan had a successful playing career in which he won an Olympics bronze medal with his doubles partner Mario Ancic, reached the semi final of Roland Garros and won the Davis Cup with Croatia in 2005.
2006 was the best year of his career as he reached the World No 3 spot in the ATP rankings. (Five things to know about Ivan Ljubicic)
This is what Federer spoke about his friendship with Ljubicic,
“Towards the end of the career when he had family, I had family, we also spent more time together. Towards the back end of your career you’re also a little bit more relaxed off the court. Yeah, we always stayed in touch. I was happy for him when he did as well as he did with Milos as a coach.”
4) Ljubicic has worked with Milos Raonic
This not Ljubicic’s first foray into coaching as he has also worked with Canada’s Milos Raonic. The highest point of that time was when they reached the semi final at Wimbledon when they lost to Federer.
Raonic had a very good time working with Ljubicic and credits him a lot for the role that he has played in his career.
3) He has an amazing background
Ivan Ljubicic’s road to the top of world tennis was very scary as he had to literally escape from the Balkan Wars.
Ljubicic’s family had fled the country when the conflict in Yugoslavia had started. They escaped on a cargo plane and crossed their way from Hungary to Croatia on foot.
“We realized what it meant to be refugees,” Ljubicic had told to the press.
2) He is Novak Djokovic’s neighbor in Monte Carlo
When the press had asked Novak Djokovic about Ljubicic being the coach for Federer he said he that was surprised about the decision.
“Yes! Honestly, yes, But you know, again, we are professionals.” (Five things to know about Ivan Ljubicic)
“He [Ljubicic] knows my game, he knows the game of all Roger’s opponents, and I think that’s one of the reasons why Roger has hired him to be with him on the team.”
And while he conceded that it would be odd seeing one of his friends helping his rival on the court, he insisted that their friendship will not be affected.
1) He was on the ATP Board of Directors
Federer had once spoken about how Ljubicic’s role on the ATP Board of Directors had played a part in asking him to be his coach.
“We always got along well, even though he’s the only guy to beat me in Basel and Gstaad. We got along well. He used to be on the council, as well. We had some talks there. I think that was an important phase because I needed to trust Ivan there on the entire board change we were going through.”
“It was quite tricky, not a comfortable thing to do. I had to work very closely with him there. There were a lot of moments where I had to see Ivan’s reaction, how he was handling it. It was a really good process. At the end we worked very well together.”
