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When we talk about legends and the air of success, maybe brought in this region by the lovely Adriatic, the first thing that comes to mind to the young and the old inhabitants of this region are, locally called “masters from Firule”. Namely, in this neighbourhood near the sea with tennis courts, some of the most quality tennis players in Croatia and even in the world have lived. Tennis school in Firule gave Nikola Pilić, Željko Franulović, Goran Ivanišević and young active (getting better) Mario Ančić.

Until the middle of 90’s of the last century the biggest success of Croatian tennis was the placement of Nikola Pilić in the finals of Wimbledon in 1962. Franulović retired from active, professional game in 1980, and shortly after Goran Ivanišević, always beloved by the public, came to the sport scene.

He became the second player of the world on 4th July 1994, and his career culminated in 2001 when he won his favourite tennis tournament Wimbledon, exactly in moments when a few had the courage to bet on him. That match against Patrick Rafter is still vividly remembered by many. We mustn’t also forget the two bronze medals Ivanišević won on the Olympics in Barcelona in 1992, or the bronze medal of the couple Ivan Ljubičić and Mario Ančić from the last Olympics in Athens.

Croatian tennis, obviously, has its glorious history, but also present and sportsmen from Split obviously imposed themselves in this fine white and respected game, where they wrote numerous pages of sports anthologies.