Goran Ivanišević was born in Split on 13 September 1971 and was trained as a boy by Jelena Genčić. He made his professional debut in 1988 and quickly became known for one of the most powerful serves the game had seen. A left-handed serve-and-volleyer, he hit 1,477 aces in 1996, the most in a season since records began in 1991, and his 1,377 aces at Wimbledon stood as the tournament record until Roger Federer passed it in 2019.
Grass suited him best, but for years Wimbledon was a place of heartbreak. He lost the 1992 final to Andre Agassi in five sets, the 1994 final to Pete Sampras and the 1998 final to Sampras again, also in five. In 1992 he won two bronze medals for Croatia at the Barcelona Olympics, in singles and doubles, and on 4 July 1994 he reached world No. 2, his career high. In 1995 he won the Grand Slam Cup, and in 1996 he won the Hopman Cup with Iva Majoli.
By the summer of 2001 he had fallen to No. 125 and needed a wild card to enter Wimbledon. He used it to make history. He beat Patrick Rafter in the final 6–3, 3–6, 6–3, 2–6, 9–7, and became the only man to win a Grand Slam singles title as a wild card and the lowest-ranked men's champion at Wimbledon. He won 22 singles titles and nine doubles titles, and he was part of the Croatian team that won the 2005 Davis Cup, though he did not play.
He retired in 2004 after a third-round loss to Lleyton Hewitt at Wimbledon and later became one of the sport's most successful coaches. Marin Čilić won the 2014 US Open under his guidance, and from 2019 to 2024 he coached Novak Djokovic, who won nine majors in that time. He has also worked with Tomáš Berdych, Milos Raonic, Elena Rybakina and Stefanos Tsitsipas. He was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 2020.