As Sunday began, Ivan Ljubicic appeared ready to take his place as that much-talked-about-but-rarely-seen sports figure: The Man. It’s a well-worn NBA term, a title bestowed by coaches to motivate their best player to carry everyone else on his back. It’s also a myth—even Michael Jordan needed (a little) help. In tennis’ premier team competition, Davis Cup, one player can theoretically have a hand in all 12 match wins needed for the title. But the Man has been hard to find on a tennis court as well. Only John McEnroe recorded 12 wins in a single Davis Cup season, when he led the U.S. to the championship in 1982.
Ljubicic, a 26-year-old Bosnian war refugee, made an unlikely potential successor to McEnroe. The American finished 1982 at No. 1 in the world, and the U.S. has had a long history of Davis Cup success, including a record 31 titles. Ljubicic finished this year ranked No. 9, and his country, tiny Croatia, had never reached a Cup final. It hadn’t even been a country when McEnroe set his record.
But yesterday Ljubicic found himself just one set from his 12th Davis Cup win of 2005, and Croatia stood one set from the title. The entire 2005 Cup campaign had pointed to this moment. In Croatia’s three previous wins, the same pattern had held. Day 1: Ljubicic wins his singles match, his teammate Mario Ancic loses; Day 2: Ljubicic and Ancic win the doubles; Day 3: Ljubicic wins again to clinch.
Where did he find the confidence to rise to all these occasions? It began with his single-handed first-round demolition of the U.S. in March, perhaps the most impressive performance by any tennis player in 2005. In front of a hostile crowd in California (or as hostile as California tennis fans can get, anyway), Ljubicic played a crafty match to beat Andre Agassi and then partnered with Ancic to beat the world’s best doubles team, Bob and Mike Bryan. In the decisive match, he beat Andy Roddick for the first time in five tries.
Nine months later, the unlikely hero found himself in an equally unlikely place, Sibamac Arena in Bratislava, for the final against Slovakia. Compared to last year’s championship-round site, a state-of-the-art indoor-outdoor arena in Spain that seated 27,000 people, the 4,100-seat Sibamac could best be described as, well, modest. The ceiling was low, the court a garish orange-and-green, the bleachers barebones and about 10 feet from the players. But the passion in the building was just as great as it had been in Spain. Unfortunately for the Slovaks, their home-court advantage was negated by the fact that 800 seats had been given to Croatian fans—the “Big Family,” as they dubbed themselves. The Slovak and Croatian fans were hard to tell apart. Both wore white shirts, batted thundersticks nonstop, and made their own (incorrect) calls on close baseline shots.
Each group saw its hero come through on the first day. Ljubicic beat a rusty Karol Kucera in his usual fashion: a variety of nasty serves, good defense, and brutal backhands. It took hometown boy Dominik Hrbaty to bring the Slovaks to life. Like Ljubicic, Hrbaty had been the driving force behind Slovakia’s run to the final. Running Ancic relentlessly across the baseline and taking everything early, Hrbaty’s emotion and determination were too much for his passive opponent.
The doubles was tight, but Ljubicic again had the right shot at the right moment. Trailing 4-5 in the first-set tiebreaker, he threw up that rarest of shots in today’s game: a perfect topspin lob. It seemed to break the Slovaks. Croatia went on to win the set and the match, and with Ljubicic ready to go again the next day, the Cup seemed to be locked up.
“Seemed” is the operative word there: Nothing is ever quite locked up in Davis Cup. While Ljubicic had a 5-0 record against Hrbaty, he must have known this one wouldn’t be easy. The Croat started strong, hitting huge serves and smart slices, but Hrbaty turned the tables with a ground assault centered on Ljubicic’s weakness, his forehand.
The crowd inspired Hrbaty to play beyond his limits. At 3-2 in the third set, Hrbaty sprinted forward to reach a short ball that had dipped below net level. He got there just in time to roll a perfect two-handed backhand over the high part of the net and out of Ljubicic’s reach. I laughed and thought, "There’s no way Dominik Hrbaty owns that shot!"
Ljubicic, like Ancic, remained too passive in the face of Hrbaty’s emotion. His tactics were curious. Ljubicic would play one point deep in the court, letting the smaller Slovak dictate play; the next point he would try to blast a low-percentage winner on his service return. Neither strategy worked, as Hrbaty broke serve to win 6-4 in the fifth. Along with two recent Masters Cup finals, the loss marked Ljubicic’s third fifth-set collapse in two months. Each was a surprise to me: All three times, he had looked supremely cool and confident until the very end.
Hrbaty’s celebration was typical for Davis Cup: in other words, he went berserk. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone go into his bag, pull out all his racquets, and fling them all into the crowd. Unfortunately, the Slovaks still didn’t stand a chance. The final match pitted Ancic against a late substitute, Michal Mertinak, ranked No. 165 in the world. (Slovakia’s No. 2, Karol Beck, had been pulled due to either a bum leg or a positive drug test—no one was quite sure.) After a shaky start, Ancic kept his nerve and won the biggest match of his life. The first person to hug him was Ljubicic, who later said, “I’m probably the happiest loser in the world today.” Deservedly so.
One man who may have been happier was McEnroe. This was the second record Johnny Mac narrowly preserved in the last month. In November, Roger Federer lost his final match of the season to finish the year 81-4, just short of McEnroe’s 82-3 win-loss total of 1984. Whatever your opinion of Mac, these two records remind us of his ability, unique among modern male players, to dominate in both singles and doubles while enduring the rigors of Davis Cup and the ATP tour at the same time. He was our Federer and Ljubicic rolled into one. The Man, indeed.