Iva Majoli was born in Zagreb on 12 August 1977. Her first coaches were her father Stanko and Jelena Genčić, and in 1990 she moved to the United States to join Nick Bollettieri's academy. She turned professional soon after; Wikipedia gives September 1990 in one place and August 1991 in another. A right-hander with a two-handed backhand, she played aggressively from the baseline.
She began her career representing Yugoslavia and then played for the newly independent Croatia. Her rise was quick: she won three Tier I titles and in February 1996 she reached world No. 4, her career high. The same year she won the Hopman Cup for Croatia with Goran Ivanišević, reached the quarterfinals of the Atlanta Olympics and helped Croatia to the Fed Cup quarterfinals, a run the team repeated in 1999.
Her great moment came at the 1997 French Open. In the final she faced Martina Hingis, the world No. 1, who came into the final on a 37-match winning streak. Majoli, aged 19, attacked from the start and won 6–4, 6–2, ending Hingis's winning streak. Wikipedia describes her as the lowest seed at that time to win a Grand Slam singles title in the Open Era, and she was the 11th teenager to win Roland Garros. It remained her only major final.
Majoli won eight singles titles, with a 316–225 singles record and more than 4.4 million US dollars in prize money, and one doubles title, at the 2001 Paris Indoor event with Virginie Razzano. She announced her retirement on 12 June 2004, aged 26, and made a one-off return in doubles at the 2015 Kremlin Cup. In 2012 she was named captain of Croatia's Fed Cup team.