I like Ivan in generally. Just not against Fed.

More proof that winning, like losing, is a habit. Shucking the latter is tough. Establishing the former is critical.

He deserves to do well, if for no other reason than as reward for his heroic effort for Croatia in Davis Cup..

Remember the 3 tiebreak sets against Federer at the 2006 Miami tournament where he played well. He would have beaten everybody else that day but instead he had to face Roger. For a stretch in 2005-2006, he would make a lot of SF and F but will not win the tourney 'cuz of Roger.

Good to hear things are working out for Ivan. I hope he at least gives Roger a match today. He's had close matches agains Federer before.
Would be amusing if the two Ivans team up for doubles some day.

I find that a lot of the guys come up against Roger with game plans and mental states that would have won matches against anyone else (Roddick, USO 2007? - I'd fancy his chances against Nole the way he played Roger that night) but instead come up a bit short vs Roger.

I love this piece. Not least because I pull for ljubicic any chance I can get. I thought his problem was that he had stopped caring enough. It is heartening to know that he still does and that he still wants to make improvements.
One of the accusations leveled against him in the past was that he sucks the joy out of winning. That is, he doesn't allow himself to be pumped up by a little bit of success. No fist pumps of vamos or any other exultations. I would like to think it is the old school mentality of not celebrating before the job is done that stops him from doing this.

Good luck to him. A very small part of me wants him to beat Federer today.

"Ivan believes he’s turned the corner after suffering temporary burnout from playing too much in 2006 and 2007"

He should have a talk with Jankovic ...

great piece. i've always liked ljubicic,somehow. maybe it's sentimental because i first started following tennis in end 2005 and i remember during that period practically everyone was injured, except ljubicic who was a prominent challenger to fed (all the way til early-mid 2006), and he sorta stuck out from the rest of the pack with his big serve and cute bald head.

Posted by Schwab 03/19/2008 @ 9:55 AM

Remember the 3 tiebreak sets against Federer at the 2006 Miami tournament where he played well. He would have beaten everybody else that day but instead he had to face Roger. For a stretch in 2005-2006, he would make a lot of SF and F but will not win the tourney 'cuz of Roger.

---------------------------

Hey Schwab!

In the beginning of 2005 Federer faced Ljubicic 4 times before Miami:

1. Finals in Doha
2. Finals in Dubai
3. Finals in Rotterdam
4. QF's in Indian Wells

and all of them were really, really close matches with sets going 7-5 and 7-6. They also played each other at the '05 YEC at the RR stage of the tournament and Federer beat Ljubicic 7-6 in the third. He has been really close in the past, not to mention the match you posted about above.

This is a great piece. I get a kind of nostalgic feeling when I see it's going to be Federer/Ljubicic in a tournament.

sher, i agree. nostalgia's the.. buzzword of the day.

Gosh! Your really do write very well Pete. Have been reading your column for a long time now. Very personal and human, apart from being accurately incisive. Thanks!

Great piece Pete! It's always nice to see struggling top players make comebacks. Hopefully Ljubicic will play well against Federer.

The "Mr. Clean" reference was perfect BTW!

Good luck , Ivan !
Nice to read about the human side of this man - who has always seemed a bit robotic to me when he is on the court
And I loved the Mr Clean reference

on a fashion note, the makeover could not have come at a better time - Ivan was never one of the better dressed guys on the court . Remember the bright red/blue ensemble ?
Croatian colors - I know - but not the best fashion look
The clean white probably looks very classic - and I am sure an improvement

Rememeber when Ivan won that Quarter to make his lone slam Semi in Paris...he sat on court and cried into his towel. For me he left his robot image right then.

But he will always look like Mr Clean. Nice piece Pete.

Ivan was my first tennis favorite and the first pro I ever saw -- first day, first match, outer court at the US Open. This was a great article -- both the writing and the promising info about Ivan's future. Thanks.

Ivan is a great player to watch, he really has a majestic backhand. He moves so well for a big guy, never seeming to make extraneous movements.

The only thing is, he almost seems to be too measured in his strokes and footwork. It sometimes looks like he is trying very hard to not exert any excess energy. I wish he would just let loose a little bit. Maybe scramble a bit, get crazy out there once in a while.

It is funny to read about what a perfectionist he is about his racquet and his shoes. Come on Ivan! Loosen up! Let the big dog eat!

I've always had a vague fondness for Ljubicic -- I dunno, someone has to cheer for the non-famous, non-flashy ones who just keep quietly trucking to all these tournaments. Hope he keeps enjoying himself and playing well.

Interesting info about the shoes. As I recall, Federer picks from the Nike models. Though Nike does offer a custom shoe build even for regular people... they tried to sell it to me when I complained that all the toes were too narrow on their tennis models. So you can all stop by a Niketown and feel like Ljubicic for a day.

This is only tangentially related to Ljubicic, but I've been recently struck by how many one-handed backhanders there are on the men's tour--more than one would think if one just watches Federer, Nadal, Roddick, Djokovic, Davydenko, Nalbandian, Safin of which only Federer is the only one-hander. But in reality there's Ljubicic, Robredo, Gasquet, Karlovic, Kolschreiber, James Blake, Fernando Gonzalez, Almagro, Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, Wawrinka, and probably many other players in the top 50 that I'm forgetting. It's not as rare a stroke as it sometimes seems, at least on the ATP.

I've never actually seen Ljubicic play; he didn't have good results last year which was the first year I paid attention to tennis beyond the slams (and even at the slams, I mostly watched the later rounds); what can we expect from a Federer-Ljubicic match? Lots of aces? Tiebreakers? How are his groundies? His net play?

The one handed backhand is going to become what the two handed backhand was in the seventies. It more versatile, allows better reach, I also thinks it helps to develop better technique on the volley, how many times have you seen a two handed backhander shank the two handed volley. I think that the best volley-ers were one handed players

crazy,

If this match would have taken place a year or so ago. You could have expected a much closer match than the one they are going to have tomorrow. See all the scores for the matches I my previous post. You will fin so many tiebreakers and 7-5's it is not even funny. But this time around I dare to say Federer will go through more comfortable than in the past.

Good to know that my perception of him as being a stand-up guy is accurate. He strikes me as such a gentleman---and very, very intelligent. I'd like to see him doing better...not when he plays TMF, though.

yello fuzz, that is true, but I'm impressed on how many of the two handers (on the men's side) can hit reasonably good backhand volleys--Murray, Djokovic, and Nadal among them.

I'm a fan of the one-handed backhand so I'm not complaining if it makes a real comeback.

SwissMaestro, I've seen the scores--so I'm assuming both men held serve very easily and there were very few rallies.

Thanks for the insights, Pete. I got to watch Ljubicic-Robredo from 2nd row yesterday at IW. Two of the nicer one-handed backhands out there. It looks like Ivan switches rackets for serving and returning. He had a couple of passionate but restrained discussions with Carlos Bernardes, the umpire, about what he thought were two bad calls in a game where he should have broken Robredo. He seemed to keep his cool better than others might have and stay focused. He was also pretty giving of his time with an autograph for my 8 year old after the match. I hope he continues to do well.

cz - many are picking up a slice as well as the two hander - it is not like a one hander disguises the slice from the top as the racquet starts in such different positions - If one has a slice backhand (regardless if their drive is one or two handed) they should be able to hit a volley.

Great piece, Pete. Ivan won me over in the Tennis Channel "No Strings" special, "stand-up guy" was exactly the impression I got

Nice to see Ivan on here again, and of course I'm really hoping he gets back on track by beating Fed, especially since he was defeated by a lucky loser at home in Zagreb. That had to hurt.

Cilic was born in Bosnia, too.

I've been watching Ljubicic off and on since 2001, when he made the quarters as a lucky loser at the Miami Ericsson Open. That was a pretty big breakthrough for him, beating Magnus Norman and Moya before losing to eventual champion Agassi. (That was Andy Roddick's breakthrough tournament too, of course!)

I was impressed by what I saw -- huge deep serve, big groundstrokes -- and I remember someone, maybe Jim Courier, commenting that Ljubicic hit a particularly "heavy" ball. He was barely in the top 100 then, and I didn't necessarily think he'd rise to No. 3 in the world, but his name stuck with me, partly because of the alliteration ("lucky loser Ljubicic"!). He seemed like someone who could easily be a top-25 player if he remained consistent -- which, of course, is true of almost everyone in the top 250!

"I'm a fan of the one-handed backhand so I'm not complaining if it makes a real comeback."

Hooray one-handed backhands!

Pierre: I agree with your assessment that he "almost seems to be too measured in his strokes and footwork". I wish his game was more fluid, but I enjoy watching it nonetheless.

crazyone - I've seen a least 3 Fed/Luby matches and they were all VERY close. But it was almost as if there were close score-wise, but not really close. I know that doesn't make much sense, but there it is. (Of course that may be rose colored 20/20 hindsight amd poor memory talking.) It (almost) all hinges on Luby's serve and/or Fed's return. Luby has better than decent ground strokes and can volley, but his game hinges on his serve. From reading Pete's piece above, it seems he should be well rested and motiviated - but then so is Fed. As with the other big servers I think the IW courts take a little away, so ... well... so, as ever, we shall see.

Hello everone,
I'm watching Stan against Lee on Fox Sport Australia. No commentators - is this normal?
Enjoy the tennis folks!

Hi Kim!

I'm not sure this is the thread for general tennis discussions, but welcome.

Btw, as it stands now, there's a chance for an all-Swiss Indian Wells final :-P

CL--that doesn't terribly surprise me (the bit about the score being close, but the match not feeling that close), that's how Fed's matches with big servers usually feel.

Is Lee/Warwinka the Rodney Dangerfield/Lenny Dykstra match of this tournament? They don't garner much in the way of respect or interest.

CL--Lee is a good player from an underrepresented area who's having good results at the age of 32, and Stan's the Swiss No. 2, with a great one-handed backhand, so I'm sure it will be a good match :-)

And they both had good wins to get here--Lee over Ferrer, and Stan bagelling Baghdatis in the last set.

Crazyone - true...but the Fed/Roddick at the 07 USO had me about climbing the wall like one of the spiders on Fed's tees...though not so elegantly. Matches against Ivo also make me "frazzled." Its sort of like Fed ... or anyone else... can't afford a single mistake against those guys when they are on.

Crazyone - Oh, I know ... it just seems like we have had reports and stories on just about every other player and every other match-up while these two labor in undeserved obscurity.

Stan - Lee

Very comical.

Sorry, I was out of topic. Today's match will be much harder for Roger than the last. He had really some tough encounters with Ivan, which I like.

I hear commentators now. 4:1 for Stan (one break) Lee to serve.

Actually, I think that Federer can afford a fair number of mistakes against Roddick, in that I never get the feeling that Fed is in danger of being served off the court by Roddick in the way he can be by, say, Karlovic. Against Roddick, he's always fundamentally in control; against Karlovic, he's counting on an eventual lapse, and/or the weaknesses in Ivo's ground game.

Ljubicic is a steadier player than Karlovic, and his serve is in some ways more dangerous than Roddick's, so theoretically he could be the best of both worlds, but there's still something missing -- he still can't quite hit Federer off the court, he doesn't quite believe he can do it. Whereas Nalbandian (for example) always believes, and is always willing to go for the jugular against Federer.

P. I agree fully.
Good first set for Stani. Hopp Switzerland!

To put the serve thing differently: it seems to me that, for all the aces he hits, Roddick's serve is really a weapon to set up his forehand. It elicits a weak shot in response, because it's so fast and the opponent is struggling to get a racket on it. Joachim Johansson was a similar server, as was Greg Rusedski in a way.

The Croatians, though -- Ljubicic, Karlovic, Ivanisevic, less so with Ancic -- their serves are like death rays. When they're having a good service day, the serve simply eradicates an opponent. They can hit all four corners and serve in a way that's literally unreturnable. Others have had similar weapons (Wayne Arthurs comes to mind), but the Croatian contingent really has cornered the market on this kind of serving.

nice to hear comments about the backhand, I was watching the Daily Show and Colbert Report,very distracting
I like the variety and disguise on the onehanded backhand, with a two hander you know when the slice is coming, and I don't think you can get the severe slice with two hands
that slice steffi had

I also like Ivan off the court. I still remember a teasing conversation with Lisa two years ago about Ivan's looks as a police detective on court. Anyway I like his attitude and Roger and Ivan have had great matches in the past(Dubai 2005, Miami 2006). Let's hope they can bring it today again but of course I think Roger will win!.

Will the ATP MS-TV rethink their coverage and let paying customers watch past matches "on demand"? It would be greatly appreciated even if we have to pay extra for it.

These matches are blow outs, but both Lee and Radwanska seem to play well from behind
It seems they feel they can win no matter what the score is
wow...Carol King is singing and playing the piano on Colbert Report
"I feel the earth move under my feet...' takes me back to 1975

"Stan Lee" - oh Ptenisnet you ARE brilliant.... brains AND beauty. Sigh.

I am glad Ljubicic's apparel company designed his shoes around him but Nike definitely designs Roger's and Rafa's shoes specifically for them, they look like the shoes everyone else can buy but they are essentially custom from the ground up. Adidas also customizes their shoes for their pros I am sure.

did they build in the extra squeek to drive opponents to distraction then?

aww CL thanks.

Mad Libs and Pt, and Mad props.

Just wondering –

On the custom fitted clothes and shoes - didn't Agassi have his own line of Nike shoes and clothes? Would Nike have done customization for Agassi for his line? IHMO Nike seems to specialize customizing for their top athletes - such as the Federer Wimbledon jacket, tux shorts for the U.S. open, black tennis shoes that the public can't buy. Also, some of the hard core tennis equipment enthusiast has spotted that Fed's shoes use the newer upper but sport an older model tread.

Posters are kindly asked to have non-Ljubicic related conversations and insights on the Crisis Center threads. This one's on topic, about Ivan the Great, or Terrible, depending on your perspective. Thanks.

AAAwwwww Pete, this is a great entry! Ivan has long been one of my favorites because I appreciate his game and his forthrightness. He is a leader among his peers on the tour simply because he has taken the ATP head on about issues (remember Monte Carlo as well as the rr system???).
This is just fabulous.

Just wondering –

On the custom fitted clothes and shoes - didn't Agassi have his own line of Nike shoes and clothes? Would Nike have done customization for Agassi for his line? IHMO Nike seems to specialize customizing for their top athletes - such as the Federer Wimbledon jacket, tux shorts for the U.S. open, black tennis shoes that the public can't buy. Also, some of the hard core tennis equipment enthusiast has spotted that Fed's shoes use the newer upper but sport an older model tread.

Sorry about the double post.

Apparently Roger wears customized Nike shoes.

The following url (some of the threads are pretty old) has some good info and of course some intractable debates on the matter.

http://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/showthread.php?t=115496&page=2

And it was Llubicic's Bday today, though he lost, he celebrated with Federer on the court.

I believe Nadal also has custom shoes from Nike, maybe it has always been that way but certainly since he foot injury a few years ago.

I'll always remember Ljuby carrying the Davis Cup team on his back in 2005! Good to see that he's alive and well!

"brutally frank dude – kind of the anti-Andre"

Ah, no wonder I like him ...

hello everyone