Ljubičić and Mario Ančić were the first doubles team to defeat Bob and Mike Bryan in Davis Cup history, and only one of four to have done that, the other teams being France's Arnaud Clément and Michaël Llodra, Brazil's Marcelo Melo and Bruno Soares and Serbia's Nenad Zimonjić and Ilija Bozoljac.

Ljubičić was born in Banja Luka, at the time SR Bosnia and Herzegovina, SFR Yugoslavia to a Bosnian Croat father, Marko, and a Bosniak mother, Hazira (née Beganović).

In May 1992, because of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the family left Banja Luka, and Ivan, his mother and his brother moved to Opatija, Croatia, while his father was unable to leave.

The same year, he won his first ATP points and played for the Croatian team in the Winter Cup (European under-16 indoors championship).

His biggest success as a junior was reaching the final at Wimbledon, where he was defeated by Vladimir Voltchkov of Belarus after winning the first set.

He turned professional in 1998 and played in the final of the ATP Challenger in Zagreb, where he lost to former French Open finalist Alberto Berasategui.

[citation needed] In 2000, Ljubičić played in two semifinals (Sydney and Båstad) and three quarterfinals (Marseille, Copenhagen, and Brighton).

He won his first ATP singles title at Lyon in 2001, after defeating Gustavo Kuerten, Gastón Gaudio, Marat Safin, and Younes El Aynaoui.

29 in the professional rankings and continued to play well, participating in seven ATP Tour semifinals: Adelaide, Rotterdam, Miami, St. Polten, Gstaad, Umag, and Cincinnati.

In the semifinal held in September against the Russian team, Ljubičić defeated Mikhail Youzhny in five sets in his first singles match.

He reached consecutive finals of the last two Masters Series Events, losing to Nadal in Madrid after being up two sets to love and to Tomáš Berdych at Paris.

9 in the world and earned his first appearance at the year-end Masters Cup, where he was eliminated in the group stage (Ljubičić was one of a number of entrants who were invited due to the withdrawal of higher-ranked players, such as No.

[7] He bettered this feat when he made the semifinals of the French Open, beating Carlos Berlocq, Óscar Hernández, Juan Mónaco, Rubén Ramírez Hidalgo and Julien Benneteau before the run ended with a loss to Rafael Nadal, who holds the record for the longest win streak on clay.

In this tournament, Ljubičić played his first competitive match with a Head racquet, after abandoning his previous racket sponsor, Babolat.

[citation needed] He played in the Australian Open and was seeded fourth, but was surprisingly defeated in the first round by Mardy Fish.

Ljubičić bounced back well to make the final of the Zagreb Indoor Open, against Cypriot Marcos Baghdatis.

At the Pacific Life Open in Indian Wells, California, Ljubičić lost to Andy Roddick in the quarterfinals.

Playing at s'Hertogenbosch in the Netherlands, he defeated Dutch home crowd favourite, Peter Wessels in three tight sets.

12), he opened his Wimbledon campaign against American Vince Spadea, followed by a win over Jan Hernych, but fell in four sets to Paul-Henri Mathieu.

However, he failed to win a match in the two Masters Series tournaments, losing to Stefan Koubek in Madrid and Marcos Baghdatis in Paris.

He was then granted a wildcard to a Challenger in East London, South Africa, where he defeated Stefan Koubek in straight sets.

His next significant result was in Zagreb, where, as the home crowd favorite, he reached the final, losing to Ukrainian lucky loser Sergiy Stakhovsky.

He then lost in the opening match in three tournaments: in Rotterdam to Andy Murray in Marseille to Feliciano López and in the Dubai to David Ferrer.

Ljubičić received a wild card into the Monte Carlo Masters and in the second round defeated Juan Martín del Potro.

His clay-court form did not carry into the French Open, as he suffered a disappointing defeat by Juan Carlos Ferrero in five sets in the first round.

In February, a week after reaching the semifinals of the Australian Open losing to Djokovic, Federer underwent knee surgery.

Federer managed to reach the semifinals of Wimbledon losing to Ljubičić's former student Raonic before re-injuring his knee and subsequently taking six months off to recover.

After skipping the clay season, Federer claimed his 19th Grand Slam at Wimbledon without dropping a set, defeating Marin Čilić in the final.

Ljubičić is known for his offensive and intelligent game, characterized by his deadly serve and powerful groundstrokes off both wings, as well as his excellent selection of shots.

He usually stays at the baseline, relying on his fast, consistent and wide-driving groundstrokes, and uses slice and dropshots to great effect to surprise his opponents.