The Tennis Podcast: Pat Rafter reveals Wimbledon heartache of 2001 final

Goran Ivanisevic watched Pat Rafter’s return sink into the net on a fourth Championship point and fell flat on his back. He had finally won Wimbledon after a decade of trying. Rafter ruffled the Croatian’s hair with a sporting smile, and the world rejoiced.

Rafter was ok with it. Rafter was fine. Everyone loved him, he had won two US Opens, made enough money, and would retire and live happily ever after with his family and friends.

But in an interview with The Tennis Podcast, as part of their daily Wimbledon Re-Lived series, Rafter admitted things had not been quite as easy as people thought.

“I can laugh about it now, but at the time I had no laughter in me when that final point went his way,” Rafter told Catherine Whitaker, presenter of The Tennis Podcast.

“I’m genuinely happy for Goran, and if I hadn’t been playing him I’d have wanted him to win. But for the first five years after that final I was waking up in a cold sweat in the night, going through the game when I was up 5-4 on his serve with him at 0-30, wishing I’d done this or that. When we shook hands it all looked like we were best buddies, but I wasn’t happy. I was hurting, I was seething. I don’t think about it often now, sometimes a thought or flashback might come in and I’m very quick to push it aside.”

Otherwise, Rafter comes across happy and content in the interview, and reveals the sort of friendship he enjoyed with Ivanisevic.

We also hear from Ivanisevic, who describes the tennis played in the final 9-7 fifth set game as the worst of any Grand Slam final.

His compatriot Ivan Ljubicic details how he was so inspired by Ivanisevic that he carried a picture of Goran in his wallet, and that the next day he beat Roger Federer 6-1, 6-2 in Gstaad, Switzerland. Now Federer’s coach, he says he reminds him of that fact on a daily basis.

The 10th edition of Wimbledon Re-Lived will cover the 2004 triumph of a 17-year-old Maria Sharapova over Serena Williams.

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The Tennis Podcast is produced weekly year-round, and daily during the Grand Slam tournaments