Goran Ivanisevic did unto Mats Wilander on Friday just as he had done unto so many others in the prime of a wild, often wacky career that saw him become the most improbable Wimbledon champion of the modern era.

Preparing for possible Davis Cup duty on behalf of Croatia in a few weeks, Ivanisevic bested the Swede, who won almost everything in his own luminous career but Wimbledon, by serving 23 aces in a 7-6 (4), 6-3 victory in the Stanford Financial Champions Cup at Westside Tennis Club.

Thomas Muster, Jim Courier and Todd Martin also won on the second day of the tournament's round-robin play.

A fortnight to remember

Aces never have been in short supply for Ivanisevic, the powerful 6-4 lefthander who retired from the ATP Tour in 2004 with 599 victories — one of which was worth as much to him as the other 598 combined. Ivanisevic blasted a record 212 aces over the course of a historic, rain-soaked 2001 Wimbledon fortnight that ended with his Centre Court destiny finally fulfilled at the expense of Patrick Rafter.

Nine years earlier, when Ivanisevic really should have won tennis' most prized title, he let Andre Agassi steal it from him. He also lost the 1994 final to Pete Sampras.

"I never do anything the easy way," Ivanisevic said.

It took him 15 days and the longest fifth set in a Wimbledon final to finally win and become the only wild-card invitee to capture a Grand Slam. Rain had forced the last match to be played in full Monday for the first time since 1922, giving Wimbledon no choice except to open its gates to the raucous, unwashed masses if it wanted anything approaching a full stadium.

Still, despite the circus atmosphere, the 125th-ranked Ivanisevic was no clown that afternoon, leaving everything he had on the worn sod to defeat Rafter. His shoulder was damaged and the damn-the-torpedoes effort against the Aussie probably ensured he would soon need major surgery. He wound up playing the last match of his ATP career on Centre Court three years later.

But he had put Croatian tennis on the map, and the result will be the Davis Cup tie in Bratislava, Slovakia, the first weekend of December for the 2005 championship. Ivanisevic, a former assistant coach, was probably added to the team mostly because of his icon status, although John McEnroe said recently that Ivanisevic is playing well enough to beat most of the current ATP pros.

A Croatian giant

He was certainly good enough to beat Wilander.

"It is a little strange to be playing outside here," Ivanisevic said. "I've been mostly indoors and the ball was flying all over the place. But I feel really good. I'm ready (for Davis Cup). If I can help the team, I will. It doesn't matter, for me, what I do.

"The only thing that matters is that we win. It would be the greatest (sports) moment ever for my country."

Croatia has done well internationally in basketball — winning the silver medal to the U.S. "Dream Team's" gold in Barcelona in 1992 — soccer and team handball. Its rise in tennis, however, can only be described as meteoric, and Ivanisevic deserves credit for inspiring the country's generation-next.

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