But until yesterday, there was no tale to rival Jennifer Capriati’s comeback saga, the now-familiar yarn of a childhood prodigy with the “can’t miss” tag turned bloated, bleary-eyed, drug-troubled teen. The burnout figured to be the last word on her tennis career. But she returned to the court, her game a shell of its former self as she went five years without winning one Grand Slam match. But incremental gain upon incremental gain began to turn into giant steps. And this year Capriati, at 24, stunned the sports world by first winning the Australian Open and then the French, the first two legs of the fabled Grand Slam. Wimbledon was, the consensus believed, now there for the taking. Capriati was no longer a comeback kid. She was back and the best, a seemingly unbeatable combination of powerful shotmaking, fitness and a new mental toughness.
Which is what makes sports so utterly compelling. Because somewhere on the way to a quick semifinal rout of a relatively obscure 19-year-old Belgium up-and-comer, Justine Henin, Capriati unraveled. And when the rain-delayed final weekend finally finished with the last curtsy and bow to the royal box, Capriati’s amazing “to-hell-and-back” yarn had been upstaged by another comeback story and the most improbable championship run at Wimbledon-or pretty much anywhere else-in memory. “This is unbelievable,” said Goran Ivanisevic, in what passes for a massive understatement after his marathon, five-set victory (6-3, 3-6, 6-3, 2-6, 9-7) over Australian Pat Rafter.
The fiery, flaky, funny 29-year-old Croat was once regarded as the Phil Mickelson of the courts-“the best player never to win a major.” Unlike golfer Mickelson, he seemed fated to retire with that distinction. Three times in the ’90s, he had made it to the Wimbledon final-riding his 120-plus-mile-per-hour serve-only to fall to American greats Pete Sampras (twice) and Andre Agassi.
After the last stumble, a five-setter to Sampras in 1998, Ivanisevic seemed to give up the ghost. His game crumbled and his ranking, which had been as high as number two in 1997, plummeted. About all that was heard from him was anecdotal, and the anecdotes tended toward the bizarre. How he was playing obscure tournaments on the satellite tour. How he had to default a match in Brighton, England, because he only brought three racquets and busted each of them in anger over his shoddy play. How he flew 24 hours to play a qualifying match for the Australian Open, then didn’t even bother to try to win it.
By the end of the 2000 season, Ivanisevic was flirting with tennis oblivion. He had lost more matches that season than he won, something that hadn’t happened since he was 16 years old. And his world ranking had bottomed out at 129. With that pitiful number beside his name, he was ineligible to play in most major tournaments, except with a special exemption. By the time Wimbledon entries were being passed out this year, he had managed to elevate his ranking only to 125. But the All-England Club, not usually overly sentimental when it comes to anyone but their own, recalled Goran’s three gallant finals and dealt him a “wild card” entry-and itself a story for the ages. “I came here and nobody even talked about me,” he said.
But after some impressive early wins and some terrific celebration theatrics (the stripping off the shirt can work for men too), there was plenty of talk about Goran. It was a blessing for the tournament since the women’s competition, which has provided the best story lines in tennis since the Williams sisters arrived on the scene several years ago, was surprisingly lackluster. Venus Williams’s successful defense of her title was impressive in the business-like way she dispatched the opposition, but it had none of the emotional sparks of her 2000 triumph. And while both her semi-final victory over Lindsay Davenport and her final win over Henin went three sets, neither really seemed to be in doubt and both finished with third-set routs.
By contrast, the men’s semis and finals all went five, and all could have gone either way. For Ivanisevic, the final game in which he served for the championship was an extended torture. He said afterwards that his racquet felt like it weighed 50 pounds. And that was apparent. He double-faulted three times, twice squandering match points. He said later that he alternately prayed and railed against God for putting him in the position to lose a Wimbledon final again. “I thought, ‘Not again, please God,” he urged. “What did I do to you?” When Rafter hit the final point into the net, Ivanisevic collapsed on the court and bounced up with tears filling his eyes. “I don’t know if I’m going to wake up and someone’s going to tell me, ‘You didn’t win Wimbledon again,’” he said. “This was my dream all my life. This is unbelievable.”
Wimbledon is one of sport’s magic palaces. Just three years ago, the stirring tale of redemption was Jana Novotna’s. Her 1993 finals loss to Steffi Graf has come to represent the classic choke in all of sports. She kicked away a 4-0 lead in the deciding set and, by the end, flailed helplessly at point after point in a six-straight steamroll at the hands of Steffi. Few can forget her bawling afterwards, comforted in the kind embrace of the Duchess of Kent. When she came back to win Wimbledon in 1998, it was as if a burden was lifted from the psyche of all tennis fans. Ivanisevic’s triumph had something of that same quality, proof that sometimes there are those special moments when perseverance doesn’t have to simply be its own reward.
