Matanović defeated many other leading players, including Efim Bogoljubov, Savielly Tartakower, Svetozar Gligoric, Paul Keres, Efim Geller, Bent Larsen, Lajos Portisch, Leonid Stein, Vlastimil Hort, Fridrik Olafsson, Lev Polugaevsky, Tigran Petrosian, Ljubomir Ljubojevic, Ulf Andersson, Jan Timman and Borislav Ivkov.

[9] Matanovic represented Yugoslavia in 11 Chess Olympiads (1954-72, 1978) playing alongside some of the greatest players in the world such as GMs Svetozar Gligoric, Borislav Ivkov and Ljubomir Ljubojevic.

[15] Matanović made his first appearance at the European team level in the inaugural event at Vienna 1957, and was chosen on five further occasions.

In 1966, together with Milivoje Molerovic, Matanovic founded the company Chess Informant (Шаховски Информатор in Serbian) and started publishing books with the same name twice a year.

In that way Chess Informant pioneered the use of Figurine Algebraic Notation to avoid the use of initials for the names of the pieces, which vary between languages.

[20] Other world champions, including Anatoly Karpov, Vladimir Kramnik, and Viswanathan Anand, attest that Informant is central to their tournament preparation.

Aleksandar Matanović participated in the memorial tournament held in Moscow in 2007 to commemorate the great chess rivalry between the USSR and Yugoslavia.

He spoke about his 64-year-long friendship with Gligoric, from the early days of youth competitions to chess Olympiads, matches and tournaments: "We were opponents on the chessboard, friends for 64 years.